The race director of the Ename Samyn Classic has pushed back against Wout van Aert's claims that his puncture late in Tuesday's race might have been sabotage.
The Belgian racer was left out of contention in the final of the cobbled Classic, puncturing 10km from the line before taking two bike changes on the way to finishing in 60th place.
Later on, he pointed out that "suddenly, there were lots of shards of glass on the road", saying it was "unusual" to see that in a spot the race had already passed several times on the circuit race.
"That smells like sabotage," though not specifically "aimed at me", he added.
Ludwig De Winter, who directs the 1.1 race in Wallonia, said that the race organisers weren't alerted to any claim of sabotage, telling Sporza that he believed Van Aert's puncture to be "an unfortunate coincidence".
"Sabotage? Did Wout say that? I have to admit I didn't follow the post-race reactions closely, but we didn't hear anything about broken glass or sabotage," he said.
"In a race like the Ename Samyn Classic, there are always flat tyres. That was also the case yesterday, especially on or just after the cobbled sectors. But I think Wout's flat tyre was due to an unfortunate coincidence."
De Winter said that the post-race debriefing with local law enforcement didn't throw up anything suspicious, either.
"Perhaps [Van Aert] witnessed something else, but that information hasn't reached us yet," he said.
"We already had a debriefing with the police yesterday, and nothing suspicious was reported. As far as we know, there was no incident or deliberate action on our route."
He noted that Van Aert's incident didn't come among a flurry of other punctures at the same spot. De Winter concluded that the puncture was "a racing incident".
"You're racing on a circuit, of course, and that always makes it complex. But as Wout himself points out – we passed that spot about seven times, and it wasn't like it was raining flat tyres there," he said.
"If you assume it was sabotage, surely Van Aert wouldn't have been the only victim. Oh well, it's a racing incident like many others, and it's mainly a shame for Wout himself."
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