Merciless tour jury punishes kiss - and receives malice
A kiss and a cuddle: Radpro pro Julien Bernard takes time for love during the Tour de France. His family is pleased, but the race commissioners fine him for his stop in the time trial. The competition is shocked, the French rider confesses as a repeater.
For Julien Bernard, there was a lot of love from the roadside - and from the jury - during the Individual Time Trial of the Tour de France. And for this heartwarming story of the 111th French Grand Tour, it only received a mediocre reception from the apparently humor- and empathetic commissioners of the UCI. And the traffic wardens, in turn, collected quite a few fines.
The French cyclist Bernard from Team Lidl-Trek was celebrated by masses of ecstatic fans with placards bearing his image during the 25.3 kilometers through his home region of Burgund. He kept waving to the crowd and finally stopped in the peloton to kiss his wife and his son. The TV images went around the world.
The jury then punished the "troublemaker" in a more clandestine manner. In the usual communiqué, which normally lists penalties for wild riders and litterers among the riders, Bernard was introduced as a fine payer. His offense: "Unwanted or inappropriate behavior during the race and damage to the image of the sport."
Bernard himself took it relatively calmly. "I'm sorry I've damaged the image of the sport," he wrote in a message addressed to the UCI at X: "But I'm ready to pay CHF 200 a day to experience this moment again."
Bernard's fellow riders reacted rather shocked. "That's quite a joke," wrote the Dane Magnus Cort. And the joke got even better when the Tour posted a celebratory video of Bernard's Jubilee on their channels. Bernard finished 61st among the 174 riders - only one of the eight German riders was faster. And they weren't even kissed.
Julien Bernard's act of love during the Tour de France, a kiss to his family during the Individual Time Trial, brought joy to the crowd but attracted the attention of the UCI for deviating from the rules of cycling. Despite fines accumulating, Bernard's passionate moment in the Tour de France, known as the "Tour de France de Bernard," was celebrated by fans and other riders alike.
