Fight breaks out between Quick-Step and Sunweb riders after finish of Münsterland Giro
The two riders confront each other in a heated post-race moment
A video has emerged showing an altercation between a Quick-Step and Sunweb rider after the finish of the Münsterland Giro.
The incident happened as Sunweb sprinter Max Walscheid gave a post-race television interview, when Deceuninck – Quick-Step’s Florian Senechal appeared to hit him in the head.
Walscheid then approached Senechal, throwing a punch, and the pair exchanged shoves before another Quick-Step rider intervened and broke up the two riders.
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The altercation happened shortly after the finish of the German one-day race, Münsterland Giro, which was won by Deceuninck – Quick-Step’s Álvaro Hodeg in a bunch a sprint.
Walscheid, 26, finished fifth in the sprint after 193km of racing from Emsdetten to Münster.
The final was marred by a crash around 200m from the line, as Senechal peeled off from his lead-out for Hodeg.
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Senechal looked over his right shoulder as he moved across the road and appeared to touch Walscheid’s wheel, falling hard in the heavy rain, a handful of other riders going down with him.
Some have suggested that Senechal may have blamed Walscheid for the crash.
A 16-second video, taken from a German broadcaster, of the incident has been shared Twitter by World Cycling Stats and has been view almost 30,000 times.
Frenchman Senechal, 26, finished the race in 46th place, 52 seconds down on the winner.
He most recently raced the World Championships in Yorkshire for the French squad in support of Julian Alaphilippe, but did not finish in the awful conditions.
He is now due to race the Tour de L’Eurométropole on Saturday (October 10).
German Walscheid recently won the Omloop van het Houtland Lichtervelde in Belgium.
He is due to swap his Sunweb team for Team NTT, the new name for Dimension Data, next season.
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Alex Ballinger is editor of BikeBiz magazine, the leading publication for the UK cycle industry, and is the former digital news editor for CyclingWeekly.com. After gaining experience in local newsrooms, national newspapers and in digital journalism, Alex found his calling in cycling, first as a reporter, then as news editor responsible for Cycling Weekly's online news output, and now as the editor of BikeBiz. Since pro cycling first captured his heart during the 2010 Tour de France (specifically the Contador-Schleck battle) Alex covered three Tours de France, multiple editions of the Tour of Britain, and the World Championships, while both writing and video presenting for Cycling Weekly. He also specialises in fitness writing, often throwing himself into the deep end to help readers improve their own power numbers. Away from the desk, Alex can be found racing time trials, riding BMX and mountain bikes, or exploring off-road on his gravel bike. He’s also an avid gamer, and can usually be found buried in an eclectic selection of books.