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news
Tour de France spectator with placardTour de France spectator who caused 'Allez Opi-Omi' crash fined €1,200
The spectator who caused a huge crash during the opening stage of this year's Tour de France, has been fined €1,200 by a French court. The woman avoided jail time, but was also ordered to pay a symbolic €1 to the French Cycling Union, UNCP.
The 31-year-old, from the Finistère department where the opening stage from Brest to Landernau took place, had been charged with “endangering others by manifestly deliberate violation of a regulatory obligation of safety and prudence,” causing “involuntary injuries, with incapacity not exceeding three months.”
The maximum penalty she could have faced was a €15,000 fine and/or 12 months’ imprisonment, although prosecutors had sought a four-month suspended sentence, which they said was intended to act as a “warning,” at a hearing at the criminal court in Brest in October.
Professional riders’ union the CPA had joined the action as a civil party and was seeking token compensation of €1 to reinforce to spectators their responsibility regarding race safety, as was the ANCP, which represents French riders.
Three riders – Cyril Lemoine of B&B Hotels, Groupama-FDJ’s Ignatas Konovalovas and Team DSM’s Jasha Sütterlin – were unable to carry on in the race, while a fourth, Movistar’s Marc Soler, finished the stage but had to abandon afterwards due to injuries sustained in the crash.
The woman who caused the crash as she held up a sign greeting her grandparents in German fled the scene and turned herself in to gendarmes four days after the incident, which happened on 26 June.
> “I’m ashamed, I regret my stupidity” says spectator who caused Tour de France crash
Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.
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4 comments
That's 1,027.76 of yer Brexit pounds, according to google. Quite a substantial fine.
(Personally, I would have slapped some ASBO style condition that she isn't allowed anywhere near any professional sporting event again!)
I suspect you'll find there'll be no more careful spectator in future!
(although a short suspended sentence would have helped ensure it was so).
I think the publicity this has received will make spectators more aware, at least, that they run the risk of public ridicule all over the web if they do similar.
I don't. This isn't a one off, it's hardly without precedent. Shit like this goes on constantly, and the organisers peristently and willfully neglect to take sufficient steps at all to ensure the safety of riders and spectators.
The prosecutors went for a symptom, not the cause, probably cos it was an easy win and made good headlines, and no doubt with not a little bit of influence from the body that is consistently in dereliction of its duty of care.