French police are still tracking down the Tour de France spectator who managed to cause a spectacular pile-up when her sign hit a cyclist over the weekend, The Guardian reports
Thee incident knocked over dozens of bikes like dominos and even caused one competitor to withdraw from the race altogether. As for the woman, she ducked away from the scene and disappeared back into the crowd with her sign folded under her arm.
“The Landerneau police are investigating and we haven’t heard back from them yet,” Tour deputy director Pierre-Yves Thouault said.
“We are going to repeat our calls for fans to behave time and again, through the police on the side of the road and our social network.”
How not to watch a bike race!
A crazy fan causes chaos on stage 1 of the Tour de France. pic.twitter.com/nydkPZWvXm
— GlobalCyclingNetwork (@gcntweet) June 26, 2021
Tour de France organisers have also followed through with their threat of filing a lawsuit against the as-of-yet unidentified spectator.
Local police described the woman’s actions as a “manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of safety or prudence,” which is presumably French for “not good.” They’re now scouring northwest France for her and calling for any witnesses to come forward.
“The major issue on the Tour is road security,” Lieutenant-Colonel Joel Scherer of the French Gendarmerie told AFP.
Meanwhile, German competitor Tony Martin – the first cyclist to crash into the woman’s sign – was understandably pissed.
“I saw the lady, I saw the sign but there was no time to react,” he said afterwards.
“I still can’t understand how people can do things like that. We’re here to race our bikes – it’s not a circus.”
Crazy crash at Tour De France 2021 🇫🇷
A fan who was holding a message to her grandparents & grinning for the cameras took out most of the peloton with a cardboard sign 🚴♀️ 🚴♂️ 🚴 #TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/OEZmiSjBE9
— Nigel D’Souza (@Nigel__DSouza) June 26, 2021
As for the woman – whose sign read “go granny and grandpa” in some weird mix of French and German – it’s understandable why she’s been trying to keep a low profile this far.
Let’s just see what happens when police finally hunt her down, as well as how it impacts the remainder of the Tour de France.
