{"id":597261,"date":"2026-05-22T02:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/597261\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T02:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:30:14","slug":"i-will-pee-in-the-bottle-to-not-pee-in-somebodys-front-yard-victor-campenaerts-confesses-to-being-pioneer-of-pee-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/597261\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I will pee in the bottle to not pee in somebody’s front yard’ \u2013 Victor Campenaerts confesses to being pioneer of ‘pee-gate’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a> race jury called on riders this week to stop urinating in bottles and discarding them<\/a>, the response, naturally, was to look for the culprit.<\/p>\n

The act was \u201cstrictly prohibited\u201d, the race organisers reminded. Besides, who would do it anyway? Over the past few days, the investigation has gathered pace online under the moniker \u2018pee-gate\u2019. A Canadian outlet dubbed it \u2018the icky bottle phenomenon\u2019. Meanwhile, the Belgian press set out to ask riders who they thought was behind the offence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen often,\u201d XDS Astana<\/a>\u2019s Arjen Livyns told Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve never done it myself, and I actually only know one rider who definitely does: Victor Campenaerts<\/a>. I think he invented the concept, because he was already doing it when we rode together at Lotto.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Livyns wasn’t the only rider to point to Campenaerts. The Belgian’s name then came up again, this time from the mouth of his compatriot Oliver Naesen (Decathlon<\/a> CMA CGM) in an interview with Sporza<\/a>. \u201cI only know two who do it: Campi and [Peter] Sagan,\u201d he said. The latter retired two years ago.<\/p>\n

Though Campenaerts was not named in the race jury\u2019s statement after stage nine, there was a damning paper trail behind him: he was fined 200 CHF (\u00a3190 \/ $250) the previous day for \u201cunseemly or inappropriate behaviour (urinating in front of public during the race at Km 76) and damage to the image of sport\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, was it Campenaerts who triggered the warning? Is he the bottle-peeing pioneer, as Livyns claimed? And, more importantly, why was he doing it?<\/p>\n

As Thursday\u2019s 12th stage got under way, Campenaerts addressed the accusations in one of his daily Instagram vlogs, titled ‘pee-gate statement’.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBy very very popular demand, I will give an explanation about the pee bottle,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ride the bikes through the whole country, and I think by law in most countries it\u2019s forbidden to urinate in public. Next to that, there are a lot of crowds at the side of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campenaerts’s solution was simple: \u201cI will pee in the bottle to not pee in somebody\u2019s front yard, or not pee on people that are next to the road, then just give the bottle to the cars behind. Only good intentions.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUnfortunately we don\u2019t have a pee zone or toilets at the side of the roads, like you see in triathlon, so we are a bit forced in long events \u2013 five-six hours, sometimes seven hours \u2013 to find our place to pee. Sometimes it\u2019s challenging, but it\u2019s now forbidden by the UCI. So you will never see me doing that again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe accusation of me being the \u2018inventor\u2019 might be right, but it\u2019s forbidden now. Won\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCI rule 8.6 prohibits riders from \u201curinating in public at the start or finish or during the race\u201d. The governing body also has strict rules on disposing of bottles, which it says riders must not do in a \u201ccareless or dangerous manner\u201d.<\/p>\n

No riders have received fines for urinating at the Giro d’Italia since stage nine’s warning. If Campenaerts is indeed the peloton’s only culprit, the ‘pee-gate’ saga may now officially be over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Giro d\u2019Italia race jury called on riders this week to stop urinating in bottles and discarding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-597261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}