Vincenzo Nibali expelled from Vuelta a Espana for holding team car
Last Updated: 23/08/15 9:46pm
Vincenzo Nibali has been disqualified from the Vuelta a Espana for holding on to his team car following a crash on Sunday's second stage.
Television footage showed Nibali, who won the Vuelta in 2010, hanging on to the Astana car as he tried to catch up with the peloton with around 16km remaining.
Race organisers said they had no choice but to expel him.
A statement said: "Basing their decision on television images clearly showing an infringement of the rules, the Vuelta race commissaires decided to take him out of the race."
Astana director Alexandre Shefer, who was driving the car, has also been expelled.
Bruno Valcic, the president of the race commissaires, added: "The film shows clearly that Nibali was clinging to the car for 200m. It was a tough decision for the commissaires panel, but after looking at the images, it was clear that we had no opportunity to give any other penalty to the rider."
Nibali, who finished fourth in last month's Tour de France, had been one of the pre-race favourites for victory at the Vuelta.
He crashed in a mass pile-up with 30km of stage two remaining and fell to more than a minute behind the peloton. The Italian eventually rejoined the main bunch with 12km left, but the chase effort came at a cost, as he could only finish 31st on the stage, 1min 2sec behind Nairo Quintana and 58sec down on Chris Froome.
