Vincenzo Nibali booted off the Vuelta a Espana for cheating

THERE’S a sticky water bottle and then there’s just plain cheating which saw Italian Vincenzo Nibali booted off the Vuelta a Espana this week for hitching a ride from his team car. SEE THE VIDEO HERE

THERE’S a sticky water bottle and then there’s just plain cheating which saw Italian Vincenzo Nibali booted off the Vuelta a Espana this week for hitching a ride from his team car.

Last year’s Tour de France champion, Nibali was with a chasing pack trying to rejoin the peloton after a crash on Stage 2 when his Astana team car pulled up beside him.

As the vision shows, Nibali suddenly and dramatically accelerated away from his fellow riders with 15km to go in the stage.

Race officials took a dim view of his actions and kicked him off the Tour of Spain which still has two-and-a-half weeks to run.

To make matters worse, Nibali then wrongly accused young Australian Caleb Ewan who rides for Orica-GreenEDGE of causing the crash in the first place.

But to Ewan’s credit — who is just 21 and riding his first Grand Tour — he bit back at Nibali before Stage 3 and told the Italian to get his facts right.

“I was at the back of the bunch. All I saw were the riders crashing in front of me and I don’t know what happened at the front or who it was who caused the crash,” Ewan said.

“It’s not very nice. If he’s going to say something, he should get the story straight before he says it because it’s unfair on me.

“I think a lot of people will read that and think that I caused the crash but like I said, I was at the back of the bunch, so I had nothing to do with the crash. It’s not very nice.”