The town of Victor Harbour in South Australia is postcard perfect. There’s a salty smell from the sea, blue skies and sunshine combined with a fresh coastal breeze, the soft melody of fairground rides, holidaymakers fending off seagulls as they eat fish and chips on the harbour. As the Tour Down Under peloton roars through the idyllic scene for a chaotic sprint finish, however, the tranquility is suddenly disrupted. Bryan Coquard from Cofidis wins the bunch gallop to the line and drama ensues. He celebrates while Jonathan Narváez of UAE Team Emirates-XRG gesticulates behind him in frustration. Phil Bauhaus from Bahrain-Victorious arrives back at his team van and speaks in an animated fashion to his colleagues. This is bike racing, not a holiday.
Bunch sprints have a way of creating carnage like nothing else in the sport. The furious, adrenaline-filled sight of a peloton charging towards the line is as endearing as it is hard to watch. And, for many, this is cycling at its very best: hell-for-leather, flat-out speed that grabs the attention of fans and holds it. However, these types of finishes also bring danger – plenty of it. It’s why we’ve seen some of the most catastrophic crashes in bunch sprints, and why the sport is doing its best to reduce the danger that comes with them.
This season, the UCI introduced a new yellow card system with the aim of encouraging riders to be more considerate when it comes to the decisions they make during races. At the Tour Down Under, the first yellow card was awarded to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe lead-out man Danny van Poppel after stage three. He was punished by UCI race officials for 'blocking' Tobias Lund Andresen, who was sprinting along the barriers in Sam Welsford's slipstream. The overhead helicopter footage of the sprint in Tanunda that day showed how Van Poppel led out Welsford before moving off the centre of the road. He then looked back at his rivals and edged back towards the barriers, closing the door on Lund Andresen and everyone behind him. Most would agree that Van Poppel’s penalty was justified, but it had no real impact on the outcome of the race – here is where one of the problems lies.
“The yellow card system isn’t changing anything. The sprinters, we are always trying to be fair in the final sprint. Of course, here and there, if you are in the lead you try to close one side, but it’s never really unfair between sprinters,” Bauhaus commented a few moments after stage five finished in Victor Harbour.
“Before the sprint it is closer with position fights between lead-out guys as they have less to lose. When Van Poppel got the yellow card, he had nothing to lose in general as it's just him to get relegated and the sprinter still wins the race. It makes sense if the lead out guy risks a yellow card as he just benefits for his sprinter and the sprinter doesn’t get a yellow card, it doesn’t change much.”
The Bahrain-Victorious rider’s point is a fair one, and it raises the questions of if it will really ever be possible to impose sanctions to make sprinting safer. Perhaps the nature of the game means that sprinting will always be about pushing limits, whether that be with a lead-out man or the sprinter himself.
On stage five of the race when Coquard won, there were questions once again about sprint safety. Narváez appeared to be angry after the race, perhaps perceiving his French rival to be blocking him in the final, forcing the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider to back out of a potential winning position, eventually finishing in third place on the stage. No penalties were given in the end to the Frenchman though, with many blaming the curvature of the finishing straight rather than Coquard himself.
“With the finish turning to the right, it is normal that the rider in front tried to take the shorter line. I have spoken to the jury and the president two or three times, and I trust them in the end. It was close but it was a pity, because Jhony was coming really fast and double the speed of the others. If he found the space to go, it would have been a victor,” UAE Team Emirates sports director Fabio Baldato said after the stage.
“The jury here are expert guys who I know well and it is not the case that we look to fight this decision. It is normal that you look to try and close on the last corner for an open space. I can understand him, but I can also understand Jhony’s frustrations because at the end of the day, he wants to win.”
Bauhaus told a similar story of the sprint, explaining that it was natural for Coquard to drift right as he took the inside line. Likewise, the Cofidis rider himself argued it was a fair sprint in his post-race winner’s press conference: “I saw on the TV that Narváez was angry at the final. I don’t know why and I hadn’t seen the replay of the sprint, I sprinted at maximum. I think I did a clean sprint.”
One rider who was eventually relegated on the stage was Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Laurence Pithie after deviating from his line in the finale. He didn’t receive a yellow card, however, which further highlights inconsistencies in the implementation of the rule.
Discussing the finish of stage five of the Tour Down Under with various riders and sports directors raises one clear issue when it comes to regulating sprinting in cycling: personal opinion. As Baldato says, the judges and jury make the call when it comes to imposing penalties, and those making these choices differ as the season progresses. Cycling isn't a clear-cut sport, and there is always an element of human error and personal viewpoints that will come into making choices about fairness in sprint finishes.
“I don’t know who is judging this, it looks different sometimes on TV than it does in the race. It’s a bit like in football, when you have the World Cup in Germany you have 70 million national coaches who have opinions, it’s getting the same in sprints,” Bauhaus commented. “If you have 50 guys, you get 30 different opinions about the sprint. It's never easy for someone to make decisions.”
What’s the solution? Is there one? The majority will agree that the more that can be done to make the sport a safer place, the better, but creating rules around bunch finishes is no easy task. The Tour Down Under is only the first race of the 2025 WorldTour season, and there’s already been discourse surrounding the UCI’s new yellow card system and whether it’s really having any impact when it comes to sprinting. As the stakes get higher while the year rolls on, these conversations are only going to become more heated. Coming up with answers that make everyone happy is no walk on the beach.
