On a day of an extraordinary edition of the Strade Bianche, few spotlights were focused on the Netherlands and the Salverda Bouw Ster van Zwolle, a 1.2 category race. And it is certainly not the beautiful victory of Belgian Mathis Avondts of Parkhotel Valkenburg (incidentally the first Belgian to win the race in twenty years) that deserves attention, but rather what happened during the race.

With the peloton racing at full speed 34 kilometers from the finish, twenty-four-year-old New Zealander Kiaan Watts of NSN Development Team moved to the front with the sole intention of throwing a punch to the head of Marijn Maas of BEAT p/b Saxo and then making gestures that clearly betrayed his anger.

Watts was quickly disqualified by the race jury and excluded from the competition, and his team issued a statement a few hours later: "NSN Development Team deeply regrets the behavior of Kiaan Watts today during the Salverda Bouw Ster van Zwolle. The team expects its cyclists to race in a sporting and professional manner at all times and wishes to send its apologies to Marijn Maas, to the BEAT CC p/b Saxo team, to the race organizers and to the UCI Commissaires. Consequently, the team has decided to exclude Kiaan from the start list of the Dorpenomloop Rucphen scheduled for today to give him time to reflect on his actions and the consequences that will follow."