'We have to stop this behaviour for our safety': Shove caught on camera marrs opening stage of UAE Tour

The latest in a long line of peloton safety complaints emerged on the very first day of 2022 WorldTour racing at the UAE Tour.

An overhead shot of the peloton captured Bahrain-Victorious' Jonathan Milan giving Ag2r Citroën's Paul Lapeira a shove, nearly sending the 21-year-old French neo-pro crashing into another rider in the bunch. Luckily, he managed to remain upright and Milan then gesticulated wildly at Lapeira.

"Jonathan Milan, you just can't do that," Lapeira tweeted above a video clip of the incident.

"It's disrespectful and super dangerous in a peloton. To [the] UCI, we have to do something about these guys and stop this kind of behaviour for our safety."

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So far, neither Jonathan Milan nor Bahrain-Victorious have commented on the incident.

"Come on, exclusion. You have to be sick to react like that in a peloton," French journalist Renaud Breban tweeted in reaction to the incident, while others pointed out the shove was unnecessary given the calm atmosphere in the peloton at that stage.

Another pointed out that Tadej Pogačar was in Lapeira's wheel, so had a crash occurred the two-time Tour de France champion would have been brought to the ground in his team's home race.

On stage one, Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) claimed stage honours, outsprinting Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers) and Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange-Jayco) to take first blood at the first WorldTour race of the season.

Stage two, from Hudayriyat Island to Abu Dhabi Breakwater, will provide another chance for the fast men, as will stages five and six.

Stage three, meanwhile, will be an individual time trial to begin to sort out the general classification, while summit finishes on stages four and the final seven will decide the overall winner of this year's race.