Professional riders need more protection from mindless 'fans' at major races to avoid another Mathieu van der Poel Paris-Roubaix bottle incident

When I’m not out on the road covering bike races, then chances are you'll find me at a football match somewhere around the UK watching my team, Oxford United. That's exactly what I was doing on Saturday while my colleagues were out in France covering Paris-Roubaix Femmes. It was a hot afternoon, so I bought myself a bottle of water at half time and took it back out into the stand for the second half.

The second 45 minutes didn't initially go our way, it was frustrating and difficult to watch. Now, if I had allowed those feelings to boil over and opted to throw my bottle at one of the opposition players, then I am certain that I would have been collared by nearby stewards and thrown out of the match, before being handed over to the local police.

It's well documented that an action like that at a football match would probably result in a banning order and potential criminal charges. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to ban someone in a similar way from a bike race on the open road, but Mathieu van der Poel was absolutely right when he said that legal action should be pursued against the man who threw a bottle into his face at Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. It was appalling to see and could have had catastrophic consequences for the eventual race winner.

It should be said that events like this are still rare, considering how big cycling is and how much un-policed roadsides professional riders pass by, but it is still notable.

Van der Poel has been the victim of behaviour like this before at races, but nothing this blatant - an aggressive and deliberate attempt to force him to lose control of his bike.

The alleged aggressor handed himself into police on Monday. But the sad reality is that this could happen again, such is the nature of the sport being open to all. That is one of the beauties and main attractions of cycling - it is easily accessible and free to watch. However, this is extremely problematic when incidents like this occur.

But what is the answer? How do we stop people from carrying out this sort of unwelcome behaviour at a bike race? A difficult question with not a lot of clear answers. Perhaps starting with serious consequences for this person, but thought needs to go into what could help, given the difficult circumstances. There are adverts on French TV, but a culture change clearly needs to occur.

Van der Poel has been the subject of abuse from crowds when competing in a variety of races in recent years, and has had beer thrown at him while competing in the E3 Saxo Classic and the Tour of Flanders.

It is hard to think of immediate solutions as it is nothing new - Eddy Merckx was once assaulted by a fan during the 1975 Tour de France on the Puy de Dôme, and Chris Froome had urine thrown over him during the Tour in 2015. However, there has to be some sort of deterrent to underline to spectators thinking of behaving similarly to what we saw on Sunday that they will be caught and tracked down by police.

Legal action from cycling's authorities, like the CPA riders' union and UCI, to ensure that these people get the message does seem to be a start, before thought about what next occurs.

This is what Alpecin-Deceuninck want. On Friday afternoon, a spokesperson said in a statement: "We are calling for dialogue and cooperation among all involved parties - riders, teams, federations, organizers, and government authorities - to implement measures that prevent individuals with bad intentions from infiltrating cycling events and to take proactive steps at known critical points."

In case it wasn't plain, then my message is this: don’t bother coming out to races if you’re going to assault or abuse riders, it is as simple as that.