{"id":646787,"date":"2026-05-03T11:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/646787\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:11:10","slug":"if-the-organisers-want-to-make-pogacar-win-thats-their-choice-motorbikes-under-fire-again-at-tour-de-romandie-as-paret-peintre-and-rodriguez-complain-for-different-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/646787\/","title":{"rendered":"‘If the organisers want to make Poga\u010dar win, that\u2019s their choice’ \u2013 Motorbikes under fire again at Tour de Romandie as Paret-Peintre and Rodr\u00edguez complain for different reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conduct of race motorbikes has once again been called into question at the Tour de Romandie<\/a>, with two riders expressing grievances on the same day, for different reasons.<\/p>\n

The issue of drafting has long been a controversial one when it comes to the motorbikes that make up the race convoy, most notably the television motos, which often sit in front of the peloton and the breakaway to capture footage.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The controversy comes when there is a perceived difference in the proximity of the motos to one group compared to another, therefore giving certain riders an aerodynamic advantage.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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That’s how Valentin Paret-Peintre felt after stage 4<\/a> of the Tour de Romandie, where he’d been in the day-long breakaway that was caught on the final climb, just as Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> was striking out for victory.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s disappointing but there you go\u2026. I\u2019ll have to look at the footage, I hope the motos were not too close [in the peloton] behind, because that was the case the two previous days,” Paret-Peintre told the CyclingProNet<\/a> cameras.<\/p>\n

“Well, if the organisation wants to make Poga\u010dar win, that\u2019s their choice,” he added. “We\u2019ve said it several times before. That\u2019s life.”<\/p>\n

Cyclingnews contacted the race organisation about Paret-Peintre’s comments and received the following response: “The Tour de Romandie does not have to comment on such statements.”<\/p>\n

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Rodr\u00edguez<\/p>\n

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\"CHARMEY,\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, there was a complaint for Ineos Grenadiers’ Carlos Rodgr\u00edguez, who blamed a race motorbike for the crash he suffered on the descent to the finish after that final climb on the same stage.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00eeguez went down at high-speed but was able to remount quickly, even if his jersey and skin were badly torn and his race radio was flapping in the wind.<\/p>\n

“Not ideal to be descending full gas and have a motorbike braking on the racing line,” Rodr\u00edguez wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n

“But at least looks like nothing is too severe, thanks everyone for the messages and the team for the support.”<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez didn’t quite make it back to the chase group he was in, losing several seconds and dropping out of the top 10 overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conduct of race motorbikes has once again been called into question at the Tour de Romandie, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-646787","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\/646787","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=646787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}