Vuelta a San Juan mountain leader Tomas Conte (Argentina) was disqualified after crashing on Wednesday's stage 4 due to excessive assistance from his team.

Conte was surprisingly not at the start of the fifth stage, and it was Manuele Tarozzi (Green Project - Bardiani CSF Faizane) who wore the mountains leader's jersey. Conte explained what happened on his Instagram.

"With about 40km to go I got caught in a crash. My bike, the rear derailleur to be exact, was affected. Usually in any professional race, as you see in the Grand Tours, the rider is supported by mechanics on top of the aid car," he wrote.

The rear derailleur was either repaired on the spot or evacuated to the back of a caravan car afterwards, which apparently did not go over well with the jury, and Conte was banned from the race.

UCI regulations provide for three levels of fines and time penalties to allow riders to receive assistance after a crash or mechanical failure.

While the practice of mechanics assisting from team cars is increasingly frowned upon, the rules appear to penalize primarily the team car driver or other license holder, usually the mechanic or sport director involved in the repair.

There is also a provision that allows the jury to eject a license holder in "serious cases" - repeated violations, aggravated circumstances, or when the conduct favors the rider - but it is unusual to apply this to riders.

UCI officials have been strict so far this season. At the Tour Down Under, the jury disqualified James Knox (Sourdal-Quick Step) after the first stage for excessive drafting while attempting to recover from a crash.

Knox argued that he was late on a check required under concussion protocol and that he should have been given more leeway to get an assist from the slipstream of the formation to rejoin the peloton.

After Knox rejoined and began the chase, the officials went ballistic and kept him from drafting "more than a couple of kilometers," Knox said.

"I traveled all over the world to participate and watched from behind, hoping to continue the race, which still had four days to go. I have to accept responsibility for the mistakes I made after this."

"I am not going to be able to do it again," he said.

In the 2022 Tour de France Femme, Barbara Marcotti (Human Powered Health) was sent off after her bike was exchanged at the front of the peloton rather than falling backwards as required by the rules.

Even world champions are not exempt from the strict application of the rules: Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) was disqualified for a "sticky bottle" in Paris-Roubaix. [Alpecin Deceuninck took pity on Caleb Yuan, who crashed, and was punished for being behind all the cars of his own team.

"I had no emotion or anything for that man. He's not a player on my team, and that guy fell over," said Michel Cornelisse, Alpecin Duseunink's sporting director.