Wiebes still stunned by Giro d'Italia Women DSQ and backs SD Worx-Protime’s UCI challenge

Lorena Wiebes’s story is by now well known. The Dutch sprint star was disqualified because her bike was too light, after sprinting convincingly to victory in stage one. On Thursday, however, Wiebes suddenly appeared by the roadside as a supporter, together with her friend and Movistar rider Floortje Mackaij. On the Dutch language podcast La Koers, Wiebes talks about the situation.

At first Wiebes flew straight back after the disqualification, but once home she decided to travel back to Italy. “I still wanted to support the girls on the team. The evening of the decision was really tough, but then I saw my camper on the doorbell camera and thought: why shouldn’t I just go there?”

And so it happened. Wiebes drove her camper to the campsite where her friend Mackaij was also staying at the time. The Movistar rider had already reserved the spot, so the sprinter could blow off some steam by Lake Garda. The situation was very confusing for the Dutchwoman after her victory, she explains.

“I came back from the podium ceremony and suddenly saw my bike still standing there. Then I thought: huh, that really can’t be right, can it? Then I heard my sports director say: ‘You’re not really going to throw her out of the Giro for this, are you?’ That was when I actually knew enough.” Wiebes, however, had not yet thought about a disqualification at all.

“At first you think they are going to take your pink jersey away. That would have been a shame too, but I could have lived with that.” On top of that, it initially seemed as though Wiebes would get away with a warning. “I still remember that they first said that if we could solve it before the next stages, then it would be fine.”

That would have been no problem at all for the sprinter. “Even if they had put a kilo on it. The weight does not really matter to me anyway. I also sprinted with a full bidon on my bike,” she says with a laugh. But Wiebes and the team’s confusion lies in the weighing itself. “I saw the team weigh it and it was fine. It just cannot be that the team weighed it and did it wrong. I did try to put it behind me as quickly as possible, because I could not change it anymore,” she says.

Afterwards the team weighed it again and then it seemed to be fine. That was obviously a relief for the mechanics. “The mechanics naturally felt guilty, but I really had no anger towards them at all.” There was anger, but mainly towards the organisers. Her family felt it too. “My grandmother even called me to say she had lost sleep over it. She thought I would never be allowed to race again. Thankfully that is not the case,” she laughs.

She understands why her team is taking the matter to court. “I would definitely like the UCI to look at the regulations again. Whether the rider should really be punished so heavily for something the riders cannot do anything about. It also has nothing to do with safety. If I had ridden my sprint illegally, then I could still accept that, but now it feels very unfair. So I understand that the team is taking action, because otherwise it ends up on a pile and they just keep going,” she concludes.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]