A glimpse inside the world of the UCI commissaire: unpaid, under pressure, and never quite calling it the same way twice.
A UCI Commissaire at the 2025 Tour de France.
Cor Vos, Kristof Ramon
After every day’s racing at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, a press release quietly lands on the website of Tissot, the official timing partner of the race. It’s a drily procedural document, listing all the standings in each category, the stage result and the jersey wearers.
But a couple of pages from the bottom is one of the spicier sections: a communiqué from the jury of commissaires, the UCI-appointed judges of the race, who spend their day keeping a list of who’s been naughty and nice (actually, just naughty). And two days into the race, we can safely conclude that the 2026 Tour de France Femmes jury is not here to mess around.
Take stage one, for instance. In this 138 km sprint stage (sort of) from Lausanne back to Lausanne, the following got written up in the UCI’s bad books:
Alice Towers (EF Education-Oatly) – 500CHF fine, for disposal of a bidon outside of litter zonesChristian Kos (SD Worx-Protime DS), Ion Lazkano (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacíon Euskadi DS), Cherie Pridham (UAE Team L’IMAD DS) – 500CHF fine and yellow card each, breach of regulations or guidelines concerning vehicle movementHuub Duijn (EF Education-Oatly DS) – 500CHF fine (but no yellow card) for the sameReigning champ Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lily Williams (Human Powered Health), and Josie Nelson (Picnic PostNL) – all receiving a warning for riding on a sidewalk rather than the roadAlison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) – Warning for using a non-compliant position on the bicycle
And then there were fines for the driver of a press vehicle, warnings against cutting or modifying frame plates, and a note that 33 bikes were checked for technological fraud and six bikes x-rayed.
A bike being checked for motors at the 2026 women’s Giro d’Italia.
Stage 2 from Aigle to Geneva was almost as busy:
Dina Boels (Lotto-Intermarché Ladies) – 100CHF fine, a one minute penalty and 5 UCI points for sheltering behind a vehicleHer DS in the car in front: Grace Verbeke (Lotto-Intermarché Ladies DS) – 200CHF fine, sheltering behind a vehicle plus a 500 CHF fine for failure to comply with the instructions of commissairesFrancesca Barale (Movistar) and Robyn Clay (Picnic PostNL) – 100CHF, irregular feeding (“sticky bottle” for a short distance)And the DSes at the other end of the sticky bottles: Kelvin Dekker (Movistar DS) and Callum Ferguson (Picnic PostNL DS) – 200CHF
Another 39 bikes checked; another six x-rays.
Two days into the race, it’s clear that the commissaires are running a pretty tight ship. Is the women’s peloton more likely to push boundaries? Are these jury reports consistent in scope and application with the men’s Tour de France? Could this be a subconscious thing, with the race on the UCI’s turf in Switzerland and even starting in its hometown, Aigle, on stage 2? Is this an early statement of intent from the race jury to encourage compliance later in the race?
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