{"id":1942540,"date":"2026-05-18T08:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1942540"},"modified":"2026-05-18T08:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:28:11","slug":"the-giro-ditalia-just-had-to-tell-pro-cyclists-to-stop-peeing-in-their-water-bottles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1942540","title":{"rendered":"The Giro d’Italia Just Had to Tell Pro Cyclists to Stop Peeing in Their Water Bottles"},"content":{"rendered":"
Be careful the next time you scramble to grab water bottle tossed by your favorite pro bike racer at the Giro d\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n
There might be more than sports drink inside.<\/p>\n
The UCI commissaires issued an unusual warning during the Giro d\u2019Italia buried deep in the stage 9 jury report.<\/p>\n
Apparently, someone in the peloton got creative.<\/p>\n
The daily jury reports are normally packed with the routine infractions of modern racing: sticky bottles, littering violations, public urination, and fines for inappropriate behavior.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s stage 9 checked nearly every box:<\/p>\n
Mirco Maestri of Team Polti Visit Malta received a 200 CHF fine for a \u201csticky bottle,\u201d and team director Giovanni Ellena was also fined 500 CHF.<\/p>\n
Christopher Juul-Jensen of Jayco AlUla was hit with a 500 CHF penalty and docked 25 UCI points for disposing of waste outside litter zones.<\/p>\n
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Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 was fined 200 CHF for public urination during the race at kilometer 33 and for \u201cdamaging the image of the sport.\u201d David De La Cruz of Pinarello-Q36.5 received a 500 CHF fine for \u201cinappropriate behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bike police even scanned 38 bikes, and \u201call the bikes complied with the UCI regulations,\u201d the report read.<\/p>\n
Then came the added note from commissaires specifically warning riders not to pee into bottles and potentially toss them into the bushes.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo respect the image of cycling and the Giro d\u2019Italia, the organizer and the Commissaires\u2019 Panel inform all riders that urinating into a bottle and subsequently discarding it is strictly prohibited,\u201d the jury report stated.<\/p>\n
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A rare formal warning<\/h2>\nThe UCI warned riders not to urinate into bidons during the 2026 Giro d\u2019Italia. <\/span> (Photo: Artur Widak\/NurPhoto)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
It was a rare formal warning issued to the 167 professional cyclists in the Italian grand tour, reminding them that a bidon<\/em> is not a portable toilet.<\/p>\n
What happened? There was not a specific incident cited, but suggests it\u2019s something the jury noticed.<\/p>\n
Maybe someone couldn\u2019t stop at a key moment of the race.<\/p>\n
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Maybe they were tired of getting fined for roadside nature breaks. Or perhaps they simply did not want to sully their shorts.<\/p>\n
With fans routinely scrambling to grab discarded bidons<\/em> from their favorite riders as roadside souvenirs, the UCI might simply be trying to protect the unsuspecting public.<\/p>\n
It peels back the layers on the sometimes-not-so-subtle efforts to answer nature\u2019s call during a five-hour bike race. Sometimes a rider has no choice.<\/p>\n
Chasing down discarded bidons<\/em> is a beloved grand tour tradition. It is also, apparently, now a mild biohazard risk.<\/p>\n
No one wants that kind of souvenir.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/water-bottle-uci-warning-pee-scaled.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated May 18, 2026 02:32PM Be careful the next time you scramble to grab water bottle tossed by your favorite pro bike racer at the Giro d\u2019Italia. There might be more than sports drink inside. The UCI commissaires issued an unusual warning during the Giro d\u2019Italia buried deep in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1942540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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