'Completely irresponsible and potentially life-threatening' – organisers and teams start legal action against Ronde Van Brugge protestor

The organisers of the Ronde Van Brugge have started legal action against the climate protestor who disrupted the men's race on Wednesday.

Golazo, the organisation responsible for staging the Ronde van Brugge (formerly known as the Classic Brugge-De Panne), has filed the complaint against the Bruges-based climate activist and serial protester Wouter Mouton.

The political and environmental activist appeared on the course Around 30 kilometres from the finish line. Wearing a bike helmet and a T-shirt with the words “kids dying by the climate crisis in 3,2,1…” scrawled on the back, he broke free from the crowd and sat down on the ground as the densely packed peloton rapidly approached.

Outrider motorbikes swiftly reacted, forcing the Mouton off the course, but the flurry of sudden braking led to a pile up, which took down last year's winner, Juan Sebastián Molano, effectively ending the UAE Team Emirates XRG rider's race and injuring him in the process.

Wouter Mouton is well known to police and even pundits at this stage. “It’s him again!” gasped Sporza commentator Karl Vannieuwkerke, as the incident unfolded on Wednesday.

The Belgian activist has previously served a short prison term for gluing his head to Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring painting, while another fellow Just Stop Oil protester poured tomato passata over him.

Mouton, who was arrested at the scene, is believed to have been equipped with sticky stuff again yesterday. “He is also said to have been equipped with glue to stick himself to the road,” Christophe Impens, Managing Director of Golazo told Flanders news service VRT NWS. “His action put the riders, spectators and staff all at risk.

“All in all, it didn’t turn out too badly, so to speak,” continued Impens. "The biggest casualty is Juan Sebastián Molano, who won the race last year. He was taken to hospital with injuries. Hopefully he will make a speedy recovery. But imagine if the entire peloton had crashed into him en masse. This could have been so much worse."

The race was won by Dylan Groenewegen from Unibet Rose Rockets. It's believed that Decathlon and UAE Team Emirates XRG are among the teams that have also begun action against Mouton, as Belgian police confirmed to the press that they were investigating “what his intentions were and whether he directly caused the crash.”

It was the first incident of its kind this season, but organisers, teams, riders and fans are all too aware that it is very likely not to be the last. During 2025, all three men's Grand Tours were disrupted by demonstrations taking to the course in close proximity to riders, while Israel Premier Tech (now NSN Pro Cycling) faced concentrated and concerted political protests during Vuelta a Espana, which caused crashes and whole stages to be forcibly shortened.

Previously the Tour de France has been massively impacted by demonstrations, including stage 10 to Megève in 2022, when the race was stopped for 10 minutes by the French group Dernière Rénovation, who blocked the road and set off flares as stage leader Alberto Bettiol from EF Education-EasyPost approached.

Security is expected to be tight at this year's Tour, but it's extremely tough to police events where spectators line the route for hundreds of kilometres, in publicly accessible places, where spectators can super close to the athletes, and activists can easily blend into the crowds before staging a protest.