> During the race, the UCI checked the bicycles of Van den Driessche and found a motor in the bicycle she was riding.
And:
> “After one lap of the world championships, UCI took Femke’s bike in the pit area and tested it with some sort of tablet,” said Sporza journalist Maarten Vangramberen. “The bike was immediately sealed and taken. The UCI then called in the Belgian federation. When the saddle was removed, there were electrical cables in the seat tube. When they wanted to remove the bottom bracket, which is normally not difficult, they could not because the crank was stuck. Inside there was a motor.”
Several people in this thread are repeating the claim that it was a pit bike, the UCI seems to think otherwise. I am siding with the UCI on this one.
In cyclocross your pit bike becomes the bike you are riding. They switch bikes out to clean mud buildup off of them. So she never used this bike but only because she didn't have a chance to. They discovered it on the first lap.
I appreciate your quest for accuracy, but I think you are misinterpreting the material you quoted: "After one lap of the world championships, UCI took Femke’s bike in the pit area and tested it with some sort of tablet,” said Sporza journalist Maarten Vangramberen."
I think it means "they took Femke's bike [that was] in the pit area", and not "they took Femke's bike in[to] the pit area". As your first quote says, this was done during the race. Unless they stopped the race to do the check, they couldn't be referring to the bike she was riding at the time. And since this was during the first lap, she had not yet ridden the bike that was in the pit.
Here's the original quote in Dutch: "Na één ronde op het WK heeft de UCI de fiets van Femke in de materiaalpost gecontroleerd met een soort van tablet. De fiets werd meteen verzegeld en werd meegenomen." I don't speak Dutch, but I think "de UCI de fiets van Femke in de materiaalpost gecontroleerd" doesn't say they took the bike to the pit, rather that her bike "in de materiaalpost" was "gecontroleerd".
I'm Belgian (Mother tongue Dutch) so for clatification here is the translation of that quote:
"After one lap on the WC, the UCI checked the bike of Femke at the pit area with a kind of tablet. The bike was immediately sealed and taken away"
While that source doesn't specifically say who took the bike into the pit area, other sources state that it was taken into the pit area by mistake (probably her entourage) and that it wasn't the UCI who took the bike into the ICU.
Thanks. Part of the issue is that there is a distinction between "ride" and "use". By the UCI's definition, putting the bike in the pit is "use" even though she may not have ridden it during that race. Do you interpret the UCI's claim to be that she started with the motorized bike, rode it part of the way through the lap, and then switched to a legal bike?
To reply to the following quoted message:
"Thanks. Part of the issue is that there is a distinction between "ride" and "use". By the UCI's definition, putting the bike in the pit is "use" even though she may not have ridden it during that race. Do you interpret the UCI's claim to be that she started with the motorized bike, rode it part of the way through the lap, and then switched to a legal bike?"
The UCI never made any claim that she rode it, and I don't think they will do so either. My interpretation is that they find that a moot point and simply find the uncovering of a motorized bike to be unacceptable.
You realise Wikipedia isn't a source, right? Every news article about this incident (including the one you linked to) states that the tested bicycle was in the pits. The rider in question was out on course, riding a different bike.
That doesn't make it right of course. The whole incident stinks. But the UCI did not, and to date has not, caught someone racing with a motor.
