TDU organisers apologise over rider behaviour
Tour Down Under organisers have apologised to a woman, after she came forward saying a cyclist urinated in front of her and her children on Tuesday.
Mother-of-two, Sharon, told 7News she had pulled over onto the side of the road, so her children could watch the cyclists ride past during Stage One of the race, which is the first stop of the World Cycling tour, that races through the streets of Adelaide and regional South Australia.
"Basically we were driving along Port Wakefield Rd, pulled over to watch the bikes from the Tour Down Under go past," she said.
"Obviously picked the wrong place to stop, the guys that were coming past us...Several had stopped by the side of the road to go to the toilet, which was fine, I guess."
"But one of them stopped pretty much right in front of us and we had a clear view of everything, no effort to conceal anything."
She said she understood the racing conditions, but was offended because she was there with her children.
"My biggest offence was I had my 11-year-old daughter in the front of the car and she doesn’t need to be seeing that," she said.
"I would like to believe it was an innocent mistake from him, but at the same time I don’t see how he could not have seen us."
Tour Down Under organisers have apologised, and say the behaviour is unacceptable.
"We’ve dealt with it, we’ve spoken to the teams that were allegedly involved," Race director, Mike Turtur said.
"We don’t have an identifier, a race number or a clear identification of a jersey, but we’ve certainly spoken to teams that she informed us could have been involved and it’s in the manual, it will be a reminder that this is not acceptable and it’s against the law."
"Certainly anyone who we catch doing it, and they’ll be dealt with appropriately...They’ll get fined, and action will be taken by the governing body, UCI."
