The UCI Just Fined a Tour de France Rider for Peeing in Public. It Was Inevitable.

After bottle controversy at the Giro d'Italia, it took officials 17 stages to catch a rider making an untimely toilet stop at the Tour de France.

(Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images))

One rider couldn’t wait any longer.

After 17 stages, thousands of kilometers, and countless liters of energy drink, a Tour de France rider finally got fined for peeing in public.

Hugo Page took the dubious honor of becoming the first rider in the 2026 Tour de France to be cited for a roadside toilet stop on Wednesday’s 17th stage.

The UCI handed the Cofidis racer a 500 CHF ($615 USD) fine for what jurors called “unseemly or inappropriate behavior (urinating in public during the race) and damaging the image of the sport.”

Some might say this was a long time coming.

The UCI is always sanctioning riders for poorly-located pee breaks. The governing body’s coffers overflow with pee penalties in some races.

But until Wednesday, the UCI had not yet picked up on it at this Tour de France.

How come it took until stage 17 before a rider decided they just had to go?

Maybe the governing body was being super-stringent now it has clicked into sanction overdrive?

Or maybe riders learned a lesson from the recent Giro d’Italia?

The Italian tour was rocked by “pee gate” this May.

After a handful of regular sanctions for “urinating in public,” the UCI issued a further, somewhat unusual, warning on stage 9 of the race.

“To respect the image of cycling and the Giro d’Italia, the organizer and the Commissaires’ Panel inform all riders that urinating into a bottle and subsequently discarding it is strictly prohibited,” read the jury report after stage 9 of this year’s Giro.

Evidently the UCI has started watching where riders pee, what they might be peeing into, and what they do with the overflowing vessel.

Perhaps Tour de France toilet stops are now planned with precision accuracy to avoid public crowds and dodge the pee police. Maybe staffers even waymark secretive spots onto their riders’ GPS head units.

However, in this case, Page just couldn’t wait.

Page wasn’t the only line on the UCI’s black book on Wednesday.

Visma-Lease a Bike DS Arthur van Dongen was fined 1,000 CHF, given a yellow card, and relegated in the convoy for breaching driving regulations.