Etixx-QuickStep’s absence from the 2016 Tour of Qatar “disciplinary”: Qatar Cycling Federation president

Although Marcel Kittel of Etixx-QuickStep was undeniably the top rider in the world peloton represented at the Dubai Tour, which recently wrapped up, his team can’t say the same about competition at the 2016 Tour of Qatar—mostly because, as became plainly apparent in December, they weren’t invited.

The president of the Qatar Cycling Federation detailed the reasons why at a press conference on Sunday.

Last year, of course, saw Niki Terpstra take the overall win for the second time, and his performance earned Etixx-QuickStep their fourth successive victory at the Tour. Still, alleged reasons of discipline and decorum amounted to the squad being unwelcome to compete this season, as Qatar Cycling Federation president Sheikh Khalid Bin Ali Al-Thani specified.

“QuickStep is an important team who have won a lot in the Tour of Qatar,” he explained at a press conference in Doha, Qatar, “but we noticed in the past couple of years that we had a problem with discipline with QuickStep.” Part of that problem, he argued, had to do with how the team approached the requirements of live television coverage after those impressive wins, with QuickStep riders victorious in the Tour’s stages taking “too long” to report for podium ceremonies. In short, Al-Thani said that Etixx-QuickStep was dragging its collective heels too much.

“For the podium,” he explained, “we asked them not to do interviews because we have limited time for the podium, we are live on air. But they take too much time to change their shoes. At the Ladies Tour of Qatar, they don’t change their shoes, but QucikStep wanted to take a chair, they wanted to change their shoes, lie down and after that do an interview.”

“We told them for a couple of years not to do it but they still did it,” Al-Thani said, adding that a woman who had been sent to bring them to the podium ceremony more quickly had—allegedly—been waved off, after they “talked to her not in a very nice way.”

Other issues raised by the Qatar Cycling Federation chief at the press conference came down to hotel-related matters, but Al-Thani remained vague on the details. “I cannot,” he said, declining requests to specify exactly what those matters meant, “but this is what we heard. Sometimes you don’t get all this information. But you could feel the attitude was there that they were too much relaxed in the place.” The absence of other high-profile teams, Al-Thani added—Trek-Segafredo and Movistar, notably—wasn’t because they weren’t invited, but simply because they were unable to accommodate Tour of Qatar in their competitive calendars. Etixx-QuickStep was the only such team not asked to attend.

“QuickStep is just one case,” Al-Thani said, “and we hope things will be better next year. It’s not permanent. We respect the team and all the riders; they’ve won a lot. But things must be corrected.”

Cycling legend Eddy Merckx, meanwhile, who sits on the organizing committee of the Tour of Qatar, declined to offer his perspective on Al-Thani’s pointed words about the Belgium-based team. “I cannot say more than that. [Al-Thani] took the decision,” Merckx said.