Cycling: He's hard, no butts about it

Julian Dean initially played down Mark Renshaw's headbutt but agreed, after Renshaw's disqualification, that it was dangerous. Photo / Supplied

Julian Dean has a well-earned reputation as the hard man of New Zealand cycling. Yesterday's sprint-finish shenanigans with Mark Renshaw, which saw the Australian kicked off the Tour de France for headbutting, was just another pothole to overcome for Dean in the world's toughest race.

How tough is Dean? He was the only man in the professional peloton to complete every stage of all three grand tours in 2009, the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana.

He finished last year's Tour de France with a grossly swollen hand after being shot by a pellet gun during the 13th of 21 stages. He didn't have the pellet removed in case it meant he couldn't finish the Tour.

This year he crashed so badly on stage two he spent the night in hospital. Two days later he made his first trip to the podium, finishing second behind sprinter Alessandro Petacchi on the 154km ride from Cambrai to Reims.

"You've got to be bloody tough to do that," said BikeNZ team manager Craig Adair.

"He's had track experience back in the day so the head-butting incident wouldn't really worry him. I mean it would have pissed him off but it wouldn't have slowed him down and he wouldn't have been frightened. He wouldn't have buttoned off for a second."

Dean has one of the most important, yet unglamorous, jobs in the peloton. The lead-out man for Garmin-Transitions, his job is to get sprinter Tyler Farrar in position to win stages.

He does that by clearing a path to the front of the peloton in the final kilometre and, with Farrar on his wheel, sprinting until about 150 metres before the finish when Farrar emerges from his slipstream to try to win the stage.

When Dean was lead-out man for Norwegian Thor Hushovd he was widely considered the best in that role in the world. While he is still hugely respected, the mantle of best lead-out man has been challenged by HTC Columbia's Renshaw, adding more frisson to yesterday's clash.

Immediately after the race Dean appeared to accept Renshaw's actions, saying: "That's sprinting - no one crashed so that's good."

Once the decision was handed down to expel Renshaw from the race, Dean was more forthright.

"It is very dangerous. It is hard enough to keep things upright in sprints anyway," he said.

"It was quite unusual behaviour and certainly not very appropriate when you are sprinting at 65km/h."

However, the first New Zealander to win a stage in a Grand Tour, Christchurch's Paul Jesson, did not believe Renshaw had done anything wrong.

"That's what happens in sprint finishes," Jesson said. "If you look at the replay, Dean actually rode down on Renshaw. He [Renshaw] has got both hands on the handlebars so he had to lean in with his head. They've got helmets on, it's not like a proper head-butt.

"To kick him off the Tour for that is wrong in my opinion."

Adair added that despite the customary chaos of sprint finishes, there is still an etiquette to observe in the final stretch. He noted that the danger of sprint finishes was best demonstrated by the fact the yellow jersey contenders, the superstars like Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador, didn't go anywhere near them.

"You respect your other riders. At that top end you're doing close to 70km/h so you give each other a bit of room, not much, but you know what's going on. Renshaw went way too far," Adair said. "He really did."

While Adair agreed that the Australian had gone way over the top, he thought kicking him off the Tour was excessive and possibly a reaction to the fact there had been so many crashes in earlier stages.

"This is cycling, it's not wrestling," course director Jean-Francois Pescheux said. He added removing Renshaw was "severe" punishment, but that his violation was "flagrant".

"There are rules to respect," he said.

HTC-Columbia believe Dean was cutting into Renshaw's line and the Australian had little choice but to use his head, an accusation Dean rejects.