The UCI commissaires once again found themselves in the centre of a storm at the Tour de France on Thursday after penalising Rigoberto Urán (Cannondale-Drapac) and George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo) for illegally taking a feed on stage 12, but pardoning Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) of the same offense.
Both Urán and Bennett were slapped with 20-second penalties for breaking UCI rules, while Bardet, who won the stage and closed in on yellow, escaped any punishment.
"We assumed that's why we had the penalty and Bardet didn't, but Marien's first response was that he didn't care if the feed came from a small child or anyone, the penalty would still be the same.
"I'd rather no one got the penalty," he said. "The Tour de France shouldn't be decided by water bottles."
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