Prologue and stage 5 winner Julius Johansen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and two teammates exited the Volta a Portugal after finishing outside the time limit on stage 7, claiming that the time limit was calculated differently than stated in the roadbook.
However, despite riders' protestations that they did not know about the changes to the time cut, race organisers have told Cyclingnews that these changes in fact were communicated in a communiqué distributed to all teams ahead of stage 1.
The race communiqué issued a new table of time limits, which correspond to how the time limit has been enforced this week. However, there was still confusion on stage 7.
After a crash, Johansen, Luca Giaimi and Marcos Freire, as well as three other riders, finished 39:23 down on stage winner Adrià Pericas (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and were deemed to be outside the time limit and therefore cut from the race.
Johansen had decided to take it easy to the finish after crashing, believing that he had time to play with regarding the time cut, but was surprised to find himself OTL at the finish line.
The Danish rider took to Instagram overnight to complain that the time limit was not calculated as he had expected.
On Thursday, the time limit was officially calculated as 34:17, 15% of the stage winner's time, but the roadbook stated that the time limit for stage 7 would be 20% of the winner's time, which would have been 46 minutes. Despite the change being listed in an earlier communiqué, many of the riders involved were working to an out-of-date calculation.
"Today started well. I spent the first 40 minutes out alone before being caught by the peloton. Unfortunately, I then crashed on a descent after taking one corner too fast, completely my own mistake," Johansen said on Instagram.
"After the crash, I decided to save myself for the days ahead and ride safely to the finish. It was a very hard mountain stage, and with a 20% time limit stated in the roadbook, there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
He ended up in a mini gruppetto with Giaimi and Freire, as well as fellow stage winner Santiago Mesa (Anicolor / Campicarn) thinking they were riding safely to the finish.
"We calculated that the time limit would be comfortably above 45 minutes, and we finished just under 40 minutes behind. So we thought everything was fine. Until we were told at the finish that the time limit had been changed to 15%," he said.
"None of us riders, nor our sports directors, had been informed about this change, not even during the pre-race meeting for all sport directors."
The race organisers refute this version of events, however, as they did issue a communiqué about the changes in advance of stage 1, with the new table of time cut percentages per stage listed in the first item of the press release. The online roadbook has not been amended.
"Regarding yesterday’s stage, we can clarify that the updated time limits were communicated in advance to all teams," a spokesperson for the race said.
The change was included in Communiqué 1 of the race, which was sent to all teams and sports directors before the stage. As such, the teams were informed in due time of the applicable time limits for the stage."
After winning two stages himself, and with teammate Pericas winning Thursday's stage, Johansen was still annoyed by being disqualified unexpectedly, as the information clearly had not made its way to him.
"It’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing to leave a race this way, especially when I felt I had so much more to give in the coming days. Volta Portugal is a race I was really looking forward to, and I wanted to fight for more," he said.
"It feels even stranger on a day where the team rode an incredible race. [Pericas] finished it off with a fantastic victory, while three of us were eliminated."
UAE Team Emirates-XRG will now continue with only four riders, with Pericas in third overall, 1:57 down on the race lead.
"I’m extremely disappointed, but that’s cycling," Johansen concluded. "I’ll take the lessons from this and come back stronger."
Not the first incident of confusion
Stage 7 was not the first time the final time cut has been calculated differently the what was in the original roadbook – three other stages have had different time cuts to what was stated, with one other rider also eliminated with a time that met the original time cut.
According to the roadbook, the opening two sprint stages should have had a time cut of 15%, but both were changed to 10%. Stage 6's hilly breakaway day, won by Xabier Isasa, was also listed with a 20% time cut in the roadbook, but that was changed to 15%.
Ireland's Cian Keogh (APS Pro Cycling by Team Cadence Cyclery) was marked OTL on stage 1, finishing 22:53 down on the stage winner, which was more than 10% slower but would have been within the originally stated 15% time limit, but fell foul of the revised limit.
However, these time cuts do indeed match up with what the organisers communicated earlier in the race. The only question is why riders and teams were not fully aware of these changes.
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