Rubén Guerreiro was angry that Stéphane Cung grabbed his helmet on stage 2 of the Tour de France, but the next morning he was determined to put the incident behind him and move on.

"It was a normal racing situation," the Portuguese rider told Vejle's Cycling News at the start of stage 3.

He obviously did not want to elaborate further on the incident, only adding: "We are friends, it's okay."

This view was shared by Kühn, who was equally eager to move on, but the Swiss rider suggested that the reconciliation process was not the most amicable. After Saturday's stage, when asked if Guerreiro accepted his apology, he laughed a big, nervous "uh-oh."

"We'll deal with it ourselves, apologize to each other, say, 'OK, we were in the moment,' and move on," he added. [It is very important that we calm down and work out our differences. We have a lot of respect for each other. We have 19 more days of racing together.

Kühn was fined 500 Swiss francs and 20 UCI points for raising his hand to grab the back of Guerreiro's helmet with 36km to go. After the stage, he explained that he was trying to stop Guerreiro from looking around and did nothing controversial.

On Sunday morning, he elaborated further on what had happened.

"I got on the right side of the road, passed Ruben and got in front of him. He was saying nice things to me and constantly looking around and I was freaking out. I touched his helmet and said, 'Look ahead.'" [I said, "Don't touch anyone, and don't take your hands off the handlebars, because that's part of the sacred rules of cycling.

Kühn claimed that Guerreiro splashed water in his face, suggesting that the entire altercation was not caught on camera.

"There's always both sides, and sure you can see me grabbing his helmet, but you can't see all the nice things he said to me, or the bidet scratches on his face. There's always a lot going on."

The Swiss rider nevertheless admitted his fault. He thought a fine was appropriate and rejected the idea that he should have been disqualified.

"I understand that the UCI will fine me, but I insist that my gesture was not violent.

"It was not a punch. If I punched someone I would have to be removed from the race, but I did not hit him, nor did I touch him to harm him. It's the difference between being removed from the race or being fined."

"This is what I have and I am happy to continue. I accept the fine, but I want to insist that there was no violence in my gesture."