{"id":526020,"date":"2026-03-08T04:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T04:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526020\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T04:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T04:17:13","slug":"nsn-cycling-team-apologises-for-cyclist-who-punches-rival-in-the-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526020\/","title":{"rendered":"NSN Cycling Team apologises for cyclist who punches rival in the head &#8211;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NSN Cycling Team, which competes in the UCI WorldTeam, have sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NSNCyclingTeam\/status\/2030357981133738427\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">statement<\/a> regarding one of their cyclists, 24-year-old New Zealander Kiaan Watts, who punched a rival cyclist, and was caught by TV cameras. &#8220;NSN Development Team deeply regrets the actions of Kiaan Watts. The team expects that its riders race in a sporting a professional manner at all times&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The video went viral on social media, with many expressing their shock and disgust to Watts&#8217; actions, which are not only unsportsmanlike, also dangerous.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/opaisdociclismo\/status\/2030346960222228694?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/p>\n<p>Watts hit a rival, Marijn Maas from BEAT CC p\/b Saxo, in the head. The NSN team also expressed their apologies to Maas. It happened during a race in the Netherlands with development teams. According to the UCI list from the event, seen by <a href=\"https:\/\/road.cc\/news\/outrage-as-pro-cyclist-appears-to-punch-rival-during-race\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">road.cc<\/a>, the cyclist was disqualified.<\/p>\n<p>NSN Cycling, the team formarly known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamereactor.eu\/former-israel-cycling-team-transforms-into-nsn-cycling-with-swiss-and-spanish-dna-backed-by-iniestas-company-1638053\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Israel-Premier Tech<\/a>, added that they have removed Kiaan from their next race on Sunday &#8220;to give him time to reflect on his actions and the consequences&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"img-1686473-4832383\" data-fullsize=\"\/media\/23\/nsncyclingteam_4832383b.jpg\" data-lazy=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamereactor.euhttps:\/\/www.gamereactor.eu\/media\/23\/nsncyclingteam_4832383_650x.jpg\" width=\"650\" onclick=\"if (!window.__cfRLUnblockHandlers) return false; gallery_openmodal('1686473','4832383',false,'c59471ed7d448f8ee6ae8c2f66650e1f');\" height=\"366\" alt=\"NSN Cycling Team apologises for cyclist who punches rival in the head\" class=\"rwd_col_content lazy\" data-cf-modified-44615f89942f769c0bdc0493-=\"\"\/><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSN Cycling Team, which competes in the UCI WorldTeam, have sent a statement regarding one of their cyclists,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-526020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}