Roger Kluge has publicly criticised the UCI commissaires at the recent Track World Championships after an apparent delay in updating the points score during the men's Madison led to Germany letting Denmark ride away to take the bronze medal.
Thirty-nine-year-old Kluge, who is a former Olympic medalist, posted a video and a long text to Instagram to highlight what he believes was the UCI commissaires' "misconduct".
The Madison race can be difficult to understand but it is the responsibility of the UCI officials to indicate the front of the race and tally up the points.
With 12 laps to go in the 200-lap event, Denmark attacked to take 10 points in the final sprint. Kluge and his partner Moritz Augenstein appeared to let them go, trusting the live points score board in the velodrome and so believing the Danes could not score enough points to pass Germany and take the bronze medal.
However, after Kluge and Augenstein rode to the podium for the medal ceremony, they were told that Denmark had won the bronze medal, due to gaining a lap mid-race and scoring 20 points. However those points were not immediately added to the live score board, making Kluge and Augenstein think they had done enough to win a medal behind Belgium and Great Britain.
Belgium won the world title with a total of 81 points, Great Britain took the silver medal with 73, and Denmark bronze with 71 points. Germany was declared fourth in the final results with 64 points.
"The decisive moment, where we gave away the medal we thought we had secured," Kluge wrote on Instagram, with a video of the moment the Danish pair rode away to take bronze.
"If we, and certainly Team GB, had known that Team DEN also had about 60 points on their account, Team DEN wouldn’t have simply rolled away with 12 laps to go, we would have been on the wheel, and the final two sprints would have turned out completely differently."
In the second part of his post, Kluge hit out at the UCI.
"This misconduct on the part of the UCI commissaires clearly influenced and distorted the race, which is simply unacceptable and definitely should be allowed to go unchallenged at a World Championship."
"If we athletes or personnel make mistakes, there are penalties or even disqualifications. We can’t just say, ‘We’re sorry, please accept my apologies.’ But the UCI is allowed to do that, and it’s depriving us athletes, and certainly the federations, of a result in an Olympic discipline, which would have led to future advancement for both the individual and the federation. It's hard to believe that such a serious mistake can be avoided by an apology."
Alongside his post, Kluge added further context.
"Unfortunately, there have been similar problems in other competitions, but that's nothing new and hasn't been around for a while... The rules that were stated weren't 100% implemented either. I'm curious to see if I'll see any improvement in the coming years…"
Cyclingnews has contacted the UCI for reaction to Kluge's comments.
