France’s Most Wanted (Wo)Man
 

I think it's a woman.

I'm pretty sure it was a woman as well, but no one has been "outed" yet.

It was a dumb mistake, but the way the race is set up with the spectators right there, a dumb mistake becomes a very bad thing. It certainly sucks for Jasha Sütterlin.

Just stupid. People just don't THINK. Martin didn't act appropriately either. Looked liked he didn't see the sign and person until he was right up on them. Maybe looking down or whatever. Should have been more aware in my opinion.

Had been Sagan, he would've thrown a backhand and knocked him (her) back into the crowd.

She needs to go into hiding or she'll get McAfee'd in a French prison.

Give him/her a month in jail.

Whoever it was they got their wish and made it on the tele.

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There needs to be a law! Leave it to the French to make one.

Move anything attached to you onto the course within 10 seconds of a rider approaching and be fined. Do not penalize any other spectator that tackles you to get you out of the way.
Any damage caused - pay 3X as much and goto jail for a bit.

Same as above but not looking at the race - have finger nails pulled.

Per a new article up on Cycling News, it looks like the Tour Organizers want to sue and the authorities are looking for her.

Tour de France organisers aim to sue spectator who caused mass stage 1 crash

The lead motorcycles need pepper gel spray cannons to clear the route for the cyclists.

"Fans" making themselves the show have been a menace for decades but it's getting worse. I kinda miss the 1960s with the 50 year old, 50 lbs overweight dudes in sport jackets jogging alongside the riders on the steepest mountain stages. In retrospect that was the least bad part of grand tours as participatory performance art.

It looked to me like Tony hit his head when he came down so I was surprised they let him ride on.

As far as suing the woman, good. Perhaps (but probably not) that will make future idiots perform less idiocy.

The French need to resurrect their former bad-ass selves and reinstitute the guillotine!

Didn't know that Steve Bartman moved from Chicago to France.

https://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com...333110467.jpeg

I am always suprised at how they allow spectator on the road, running along etc. Do you see that in ANY other sport in the field of play?? This could be stopped in a NY second. When a race is in progress, arrest and remove anyone who steps foot on the road and/or egresses it with flags, signs etc. Big fine. Period. That way the 95% of sane spectators can be along side the road and present no danger.

If you are surprised by the sight of spectators in the Tour of any other road race then you must new to the sport. I'm always surprised how people more familiar with motor sport suddenly after watching a few bicycle races on TV start pontificating about roadside spectators.

:lol: Best response to all this!

On a serious note this really screams conspiracy. Expect to see the same happen to Ineos and daily instances of the moto bike staying right off the front of Alaphillipe.

Doubly serious note, I agree with Patrick Broe that this kind of took the fun out of all this for a moment. Felt sick at a terrible situation all around.

Burn her at the stakes!

over 110 miles of route -
 

that stage was over 110 miles.
A big attraction of the tour has been the ability to view and join in the excitement along the route the entire way.
It would be impossible to police the entire route.

How did she escape if she was on foot and everyone else was on bikes?

it’s really impossible to control every inch of a cross country race that’s 100 miles long. At least they’re just bicycles and in spite of the number of riders crashed, no one was seriously injured. In rally racing fans are occasionally killed by the cars, and cars sometimes have serious crashes trying to avoid the fans. There was one at the Dakar a year or two ago. Last decade, a plane at the Reno air races did a figure 9 into the bleachers, killing ten people

Only the people at home watching on TV really knew her role in the crash. People by the side of the road could have easily missed it, so she could have easily slipped away once the race traffic was gone.

They do that in the Tour de North Korea. Dear Leader runs a tight ship.

Tony Martin quote from CyclingNews.com article:

“I saw the lady, I saw the sign but at the last moment she turned the sign into the road so for me there was no time to react,” Martin said. “The move was pretty unexpected. I still can't understand how people can do things like that. We're here to race our bikes; it's not a circus.”

I wonder what grandma and grandpa think of their grandchild. I wonder what grandma and grandpa's neighbors think of grandma and grandpa.

They should have one of the motorcycles ride about 20 seconds ahead of the leader, ringing a bell. A standardized, distinctive bell. The 20 second bell.

I remember watching a Vuelta three or four years ago that they did have police everywhere the fans were. They were pretty aggressive keeping the fans at bay. I even watched an official on a motorcycle just a ahead of the riders coming up a steep turn stiff arm a fan and send him into the ditch.

Maybe they were too aggressive then and caught some flak for it. I haven't seen as much of that going on. Don't even see as many Spanish Police on the Vuelta's routes since that race. Maybe 2017 or 2018?