🎥 Martinez under fire after being caught cheating red-handed and stealing mountain points from Arensman: jury intervenes

The queen stage started with a brutal opening. Lidl-Trek controlled the pace for Jonathan Milan to sprint for points at the intermediate sprint. After that, the attacks started flying from the peloton. Visma | Lease a Bike was active with Wout van Aert, but many riders wanted a spot in the early break.

Tim Wellens (UAE Emirates-XRG) spent a long time solo ahead of the peloton and began the Col du Glandon on his own. Several riders bridged across, including Martinez. In a 14-man breakaway, the Frenchman aimed for the summit, but he was already in trouble early on.

The polka dot jersey wearer desperately wanted to score points at the top and went to extreme lengths to do so. The team car appeared, and the young Frenchman clung to it not once, not twice, but three (!) times. While he didn’t always take a bottle, he tried to disguise it with some clever acting. In the end, Martinez won the mountain sprint ahead of Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers).

The incident sparked a storm of reactions on social media. Thibaut Pinot responded with a vomiting emoji on X. Thijs Zonneveld also voiced his opinion on the platform: “Lenny sticky-bottled his way to the full haul. Curious if the Tour jury dares to penalize a Frenchman in the polka dot jersey. This is getting ridiculous. Especially if you do it three times in a row,” said the Dutchman. “As far as I’m concerned, this is grounds for disqualification,” he later added.

During the stage, the jury announced that Martinez would be docked 8 points in the mountain classification.