{"id":372106,"date":"2026-04-10T00:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/372106\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T00:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:12:09","slug":"kiwi-cyclist-suspended-for-punching-rival-during-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/372106\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi cyclist suspended for punching rival during race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A New Zealand cyclist has been suspended for punching a fellow rider during a race in the Netherlands last month. <\/p>\n<p>Kiaan Watts lashed out at Marjin Maas during the Salverda Bouw Ster race in Zwolle, hitting him in the helmet.<\/p>\n<p>He was stood down by his team and issued a public apology to Maas after the incident in early March. <\/p>\n<p>The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) said today Watts would be suspended from April 9 and May 2.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rider acknowledged the violation of article 12.4.009 of the UCI Regulations and accepted the sanction proposed by the UCI,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Besides the sanctions imposed by the Commissaires\u2019 Panel during the race (cf. the disqualification from the race, the payment of a fine of CHF 200 and the deduction of 25 UCI Points), Kiaan Watts will serve a period of suspension of 25 days, with the one-day suspension imposed on the rider by his team on 8 March 2026 being credited from the period of suspension.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"text-greyDarkFaded\">The morning&#8217;s headlines in 90 seconds, including fresh warnings about Cyclone Vaianu, and Melania Trump addresses Epstein rumours.   (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Zealand cyclist has been suspended for punching a fellow rider during a race in the Netherlands&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-372106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories","14":"tag-uk-europe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}