Tear Gas, Sucker Punches and Protests Make This the Wildest Tour de France Ever

Cycling gone wild.

The Tour de France this year has taken a page out of the WWE’s playbook and amped up the excitement with some wild moments that we didn’t expect from a bike race that’s typically pretty tame.

The first came over the weekend, when Italian rider Gianni Moscon was kicked out of the competition for decking a fellow rider in the jaw. 

Mascon, who was suspended last year for lobbing racial slurs at a different competitor, apologized for the sucker punch, but offered no explanation for why he did it. “What happened was wrong and was a bad example coming from me to everyone. I want to publicly apologize for what happened to my teammates, everyone involved in Team Sky and everyone involved in the Tour de France,” Moscon said. 

Things got wild again on Tuesday when protesters were dispersed from the course by tear gas, which found its way into the eyes of some riders. 

A group farmers protesting economic conditions in rural France had blocked the course with hay bales in an attempt to get the attention of France’s Minister of Agriculture, CNN reports. Race organizers called  halt to race to clean up and when one police officer tried to spray a protester with pepper spray. the wind made it change direction. Before long, some of the cyclists were feeling the effects. 

Stay tuned to the Tour de France for the rest of the week as we wait for a cyclist to toss a banana peel on the course and cause a giant pile-up.