Twitter reacts to Richie Porte's Giro d'Italia time penalty

Richie Porte's (Team Sky) Giro d'Italia hopes took a setback in the closing kilometres of stage 10 when a puncture caused him to be left behind by the peloton.

Despite the efforts of his teammates he crossed the line 47 seconds in arrears to pink jersey wearer Alberto Contador, falling to fourth overall at 1m09s.

However, this wasn't the whole story: it later transpired that it was fellow Australian Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge) who had given Porte his wheel to get him back in contention.

At first, this was seen simply as a great stroke of sportsmanship with the Giro tweeting its approval:

But the social media mood later changed when news broke that both Porte and Clarke had been given a two minute time penalty for 'non-regulation assistance'.

David Millar wasn't backward in coming forward with his take on the situation:

Cannondale-Garmin's team manager Jonathan Vaughters was a bit more vague, but seemingly just as miffed:

Oldest Grand Tour winner Chris Horner shared his thoughts:

Doctor Hutch speculated about where Leopold Konig might be sleeping tonight after the penalty took Porte below him on GC:

Whereas others looked beyond the black and white of the rulebook, to discuss the actual impact of the assistance given:

Chris Boardman added his two penneth:

While Neal Rogers had a devilish idea as to how Porte could get the time back:

Tom Dumoulin summed up it all up quite well:

What do you think about it?