des cyclistes dénoncent “deux poids, deux mesures entre certains sports”

If no runner questions Rafael Nadal, winner of Roland-Garros on Sunday June 5 for the 14th time, the French road champion Rémi Cavagna wonders about the values ​​conveyed by an athlete extolled for having gone beyond pain and stinging: “It’s a bit weird to see that. In cycling, we are really very strict because of our history, because the bike has not always been very clean. When you’re sick, you can’t leave, it’s hard, that’s how it is. This needs to be clarified, I think.” Rafael Nadal suffers from Müller-Weiss syndrome, a rare condition that affects the navicular bone of his left foot. And he explained having received multiple injections of xylocaine to numb the pain. HASAuthorized in tennis, football or rugby, injections, even local and even to treat knee or ankle pain, are prohibited in competitive cycling. And that’s quite normal, answers the peloton of the Critérium du Dauphiné which continues its route on Tuesday June 7th.

In a tweet after Rafael Nadal’s victory on the clay courts of Porte d’Auteuil, Thibaut Pinot joked about “Today’s heroes”.

Today’s Heroes… https://t.co/KCYQ1mZjUr

— Thibaut PINOT (@ThibautPinot) June 5, 2022

So why not standardize the rules for all sports, asks French cyclist Kenny Elissonde: “We don’t have the right to do this kind of thing and it’s better, it’s the way to go. When we start to open the door ajar to something like that, that’s when the excesses happen. It’s a gray area and once you get into the gray area, it’s not good. For sure there is a double standard treatment between certain sports.”

“I have always seen a double treatment: we are seen a bit like runners who dope when I think there is not much cleaner now than cycling.”

Kenny Elissonde, cyclist

at franceinfo

Vincent Lavenu, the manager of AG2R Citroën, sees in the Nadal case the opportunity to recall the strong choices made by cycling: “The bike has chosen the strict lines that have allowed cycling to restore its image. We have made the choice that health is the main thing to respect in cycling”. Many runners engaged in the Critérium du Dauphiné were worried precisely this Sunday about the health of Rafael Nadal and the tennis players.