No hard feelings: UAE and Visma | LaB argue mid-race, but buried the hatchet

The third stage of the Tour de France was the first opportunity for the sprinters. Not all top favorites could compete for the victory, as Jasper Philipsen, for example, crashed. Due to his crash — during which several others also hit the ground — Wout van Aert of Visma | Lease a Bike was held up, something that understandably frustrated the Belgian. And then there was that one little skirmish... Or was there?

We’re talking about an incident about twenty kilometers from the finish when the sprint preparations were in full swing. Besides the sprinters' trains, we also saw the general classification teams at the front, trying to safely guide their leaders into the finale. This included Visma | Lease a Bike (Jonas Vingegaard) and UAE Team Emirates (Tadej Pogacar). And right between the domestiques of these two teams — featuring the two top favorites — an incident seemed to happen.

Tratnik (Visma | LaB) and Sivakov (UAE) quickly resolve roundabout dispute

At one point, Jan Tratnik appeared to have a discussion with Pavel Sivakov, and the TV images showed it looking anything but pleasant and friendly. However, when asked about it, the Slovenian killer bee dispelled all questions or doubts about the incident. "It was nothing much. Almost nothing actually,' he told IDLProCycling.com and other press. "I had a chat with Pavel. They were a bit more to the left when a roundabout came up. I saw that going around the left side of the roundabout was faster and that there was space there. It was clear. But Pavel said they were there first."

"I simply replied that it was clear and that, in theory, everyone can choose where to ride," chuckled the winner of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. "It was brief, but then we buried the hatchet and shook hands. In the race, it's important that we uphold sportsmanship. That's what matters. Safety is, of course, also important. So, in the end, there wasn’t much to it between us. It just doesn't make sense to fight for every centimeter. But as everyone knows, in the finale of an important race, you sometimes react a bit differently."