Before Hugo Houle finished 59th in the Ronde van Vlaanderen, his best career Monument result in fifteen starts, the only other Canadian in the race, Antoine “Tony the Tiger” Duchesne crashed out. Although Canadian Cycling Magazine dutifully reported Duchesne’s wreck and DNF, it took a couple of hours after the race’s conclusion to hear the circumstances, and Duchesne is blaming German Tony “Panzerwagen” Martin for the crash. Once Twitter weighed in on the affair, things got (surprise!) a little mean.

In the video in Ronde’s tweet, there are two crashes, with Duchesne’s at the beginning. You can see him auger in to the viewer’s left. After Duchesne disappears from view you can see a rider in a red kit on that far left, allegedly Katusha’s Martin.

What happened when @tonymartin85 doesn’t want to get passed. squized me right into the ditch #RondevanVlaanderen #classy https://t.co/AOPVFMI17d — Antoine Duchesne (@tonythetiger_1) April 1, 2018

Duchesne’s Italian Groupama-FDJ teammate Jacopo Guarnieri might have picked up on the Canadian’s sarcastic use of #classy and chimed in with his own irony. Another Groupama rider Davide Cimolai’s comment here, “He should just do the individual time trial. The 90% of riders don’t like him” was perhaps a little too pointed.

I would like to congratulate @tonymartin85 for the extremely intelligent move that caused the crash of @tonythetiger_1 !! Well done!! 👏👏👏👏 — Jacopo Guarnieri (@jacopoguarnieri) April 1, 2018

As usual, the conflict elicited measured, bemused, amused and over reactions.

https://twitter.com/FranszJozsef/status/980511821676326913