Luke Rowe explains why he was handed fine on Tour de France stage three

Luke Rowe has explained why he was handed a fine by Tour de France commissaries on stage three of the race.

In the jury report released after the race, commissaries had given the Welshman a 300CHF (£235) fine and docked him 20 UCI points for 'assault, intimidation, insults, threats, improper conduct'.

>>> 'We cannot continue like this': Riders and team bosses give their verdict on crash-fuelled start to Tour de France 2021

To avoid confusion about the fine, Rowe took to Twitter to explain why he had been handed the fine, which he picked up as he tried to help his Ineos Grenadiers team-mate Geraint Thomas back to the peloton following a crash.

"I need to clarify what happened here as a lot of people making the wrong assumption," Rowe wrote. 

"We were 3 mins behind chasing with G after the crash. Normally under the circumstances you get some help from team cars. The jury allowed us nothing. When we finally returned to the peleton [sic] I spoke to the jury and said this was not correct under the extreme circumstances of a nasty crash and a mangled shoulder. I shouted at the jury and said some words I shouldn’t of [sic]. There ya have it, peace out."

Rowe had stopped to attend to his stricken team leader Geraint Thomas, who had crashed early on in the stage and dislocated his shoulder. The 2018 Tour winner was able to remount his bike after being attended to by medical staff, and was able to finish the chaotic stage just 26 seconds down on the day's winner Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix). 

Thomas now sits 1-07 down in the general classification however, with Richard Carapaz the best place rider from Ineos Grenadiers at 31 seconds from overall leader Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix).

Stage three was marred by crashes. Jumbo-Visma's key domestique was forced out of the race after crashing with Geraint Thomas, while Australians Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) both broke collarbones in separate crashes.

Among the GC contenders Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) came off worst after crashing in the final 10km. He was forced to chase on with team-mates and eventually finished 1-21 down on the stage, dropping from fourth to 20th overall at 1-35.

Both Thomas and Roglič should be able to continue on stage four of the Tour, a flat stage of 150.4km from Redon to Fougères.