Tour de France withdraws lawsuit against spectator who caused crash

Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by Honiton_Harry
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Tour de France officials have withdrawn a lawsuit against a spectator who caused a mass crash during the opening stage of the race.

The spectator, a 30-year-old French woman, was in custody at a police station in Landerneau, Brittany, the northwest French region where the world’s biggest cycling event held its first four stages. She was holding a cardboard sign and facing away from the cyclists towards a television camera as they passed. German Tony Martin, from the Jumbo–Visma team, was sent tumbling when he rode straight into the sign, and a large number of other riders also fell.

“We are withdrawing our complaint. This story has been blown out of proportion but we wish to remind everyone of the safety rules on the race,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme said. “If you come to the Tour, you hold your kid, you hold your pet and don’t cross the road carelessly. And above all, you respect the riders – they’re the ones worthy of live TV.”

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On Tuesday, Tour riders brought the race to a halt for about a minute during the fourth stage in a silent protest for safer racing conditions after numerous crashes.

dylangaine on July 1st, 2021 at 15:19 UTC »

By the tweets that were tweeted immediately after the incident, it's easy to see how in the old days there were hangings in the public square.

X_PRSN on July 1st, 2021 at 15:01 UTC »

She’ll have to spend the rest of her life as a meme though.

Palarva on July 1st, 2021 at 12:08 UTC »

Read french articles about it, it is said that she went to the police station because the media/internet reaction was overwhelming her. She had to be examined by a doctor because she was a wreck.

I mean, yeah it’s definitely got so much traction since it happened.