Lars Boom gets expelled from Tour of Norway

May 18 2018 12:33 am CET

Photo of Lars Boom by LottoNL-Jumbo

Lars Boom (LottoNL-Jumbo) has been expelled from the Tour of Norway because of events that happened on the second stage of the race.The Dutchman hit and yelled at Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise's Preben van Hecke with 28 kilometres left of the second stage, which was won by Dimension-Data's Edvald Boasson Hagen. The commissaries of the race confirmed to Norwegian broadcaster TV2 that after studying the images, they have decided to expel the rider from the race."You can not punch a competitor and particularly not in the face," explained one commissaire to the Norwegian channel. "It's not good for the reputation of cycling and he cannot take the law into his own hands. So we have taken the decision of taking him out of the race."At the end of the stage, Van Hecke said to the same television broadcaster that he thought Boom should be expelled from the race. When asked about the incident, Boom answered: "He was on my wheel and I almost crashed. I don't want to crash, particularly when an idiot does something like that."This is not the first time Boom is in trouble in Norway. During the 2017 edition of the Tour des Fjords, Boom pushed some riders in the last two kilometres of the second stage.At the time, sports director of Sports Vlaanderen-Baloise Hans De Clercq complained about the attitude of the rider and Boasson Hagen confronted him at the end of the stage.