Jan Bakelants of Belgium riding during the 2016 Le Tour de France. Photo/Getty Images
Jan Bakelants of Belgium riding during the 2016 Le Tour de France. Photo/Getty Images
Belgian rider Jan Bakelants has been forced into a humble apology, after making "inappropriate" and sexual remarks about Tour de France hostesses.
The 31-year-old, who won a stage of the Tour in 2013, got himself into hot water, after giving what he thought was a humorous reply to a questionabout sexual abstention during the three-week Tour.
After making a reference to pornographic movies, he added in an interview with Belgian news agency Het Laastse Nieuws: "There are also the podium hostesses."
At the end of each Tour stage, the podium hostesses - usually tall, leggy models - present the yellow jersey to the overall race leader, as well as the other jerseys being contested, before posing for photos on the podium with the jersey holders.
Bakelants, who is married and has a young daughter, further compounded his gaff by adding that he would pack condoms in his suitcase for the Tour, because "you never know where those podium chicks have been hanging out".
"We have seen this interview and the answers of Jan Bakelants, who certainly wanted to be humorous, but in the present case it was very bad taste," the team said.
"We apologise to the organisers and to those who may have been offended by this remark."
Bakelants's team-mate Bardet is one of the favorites for this year's Tour de France, which runs from July 1-23.
Tour hostesses have long been a feature of cycling races.
Often students, they work long hours hosting sponsors, before presenting flowers, prizes and the various coloured jerseys riders win for leading a particular category of the race.
They flank the winning rider on the podium, while photographs are taken, often kissing him on the cheek, but other communication between the women and riders is forbidden.
That doesn't mean the podium performers haven't featured regularly in cycling scandals. At the 2013 Tour of Flanders, now-world champion Peter Sagan apologised after grabbing a woman's bottom on the podium.
In 2015, Belgian cycling event E3 Harelbeke was branded "misogynistic" and "demeaning" for promoting the race with a poster campaign that featured a photo of a woman's bottom about to be squeezed by a hand wearing cycling gloves, alongside the slogan "Who'll squeeze them in Harelbeke?"
The posters were eventually withdrawn by the event promoters.
