The run in to the dash was ramping up into full velocity on Thursday’s stage 1 of Vuelta a Burgos Féminas when, with simply 150m to go, Sofia Bertizzolo (UAE Team ADQ) and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) got here down arduous. When that occurred Lucinda Brand’s first intuition was an comprehensible one – to cease and see what she may do to assist her clearly harm teammate.
Balsamo was on the bottom after she was knocked straight into the barrier at excessive velocity and, whereas officers and medical employees had been nonetheless dashing towards the injured riders, Brand was already by her Italian teammate’s facet. It was later was revealed that Balsamo suffered concussion and a fracture to her nasal bone and second metacarpal.
“Today I adopted my human intuition and never my racing intuition,” mentioned Brand in a put up on social media. “I ended to test on my teammate after a nasty crash simply meters from the end.
“I did not suppose twice about doing it and I do not remorse it however, doing the fitting factor, misplaced me three minutes even with the road in view.”
Lotta Henttala (EF Education-Cannondale) went on to win the dash and 60 riders got the identical time, together with Balsamo and Bertizzolo who could not end after the crash at about 150m from the road however got the time of the winner because of the three kilometre rule.
The related regulation – merchandise 2.6.027 of the UCI guidelines doc Part II Road Races – outlines that: “In the case of a duly famous incident within the final three kilometres of a highway race stage, the rider or riders affected shall be credited with the time of the rider or riders in whose firm they had been using in the meanwhile of the incident. His or their inserting shall be decided by the order by which he or they really cross the ending line.”
It additionally provides that an incident is “any occasion impartial from the bodily capability of the rider (fall, mechanical drawback, puncture) and his will of remaining with the riders in whose firm he was using in the meanwhile of the incident.”
The rule was not utilized for Brand who was not a part of the accident, however stopped in response to it. She was on the outcomes with a 3:03 deficit, sufficient to, except one thing drastic occurs, put the in-form rider utterly out of rivalry for the highest GC spots within the four-day Women’s WorldTour stage race.
“If Barzi [Balsamo] had been capable of end, she would have gotten the identical time because the group so why ought to caring for others in that second be handled any totally different within the eyes of [the UCI],” Brand requested.
