British Cycling Performance Director Stephen Park to disqualify Denmark for the team's use of kinesiology tape to gain aerodynamic margin in the men's team pursuit opener at the Tokyo Olympics. The committee requested that.

The tape, used primarily as support for injuries and muscle imbalances, was found on the front of both shins of all four Danish athletes during the opening round of the Team Pursuit on Monday.

Chris Boardman was one of the prominent critics of the tape, and Stephen Park, British Cycling's performance director, was involved in the more formal complaint process surrounding the tape's use with the UCI and race commissaires.

"Overnight, a number of teams, including ours, filed complaints.

"They began the meeting by saying they had found the Dane in violation of the regulations.

However, much to Park's dismay, the UCI only gave the Danish team a warning, not a disqualification.

"I think they should be disqualified. [The rules are clear. It says you can't put anything on your skin. They applied something to their skin. They don't have a choice because the specific rule says that if they break that rule, their choice is to be eliminated or disqualified. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that it was intentional."

When Denmark faced Great Britain in the second round, the team's kinesiology tape was nowhere to be found.

But the focus was not only on kinesiology tape. Denmark's base layer had been the subject of debate even before the late crash (open in new tab) that ultimately led to Denmark's appearance in the final against Italy.

"There was debate as to whether registration was required or not, but the relevance was whether it was for aerodynamic benefit and whether it could be sold. Unfortunately, with respect to the first point, the product in question is Huub clothing, but is actually advertised as an aerodynamic undervest.

"In particular, a number of teams examined the website's source code and found that the information that the kit was actually published in May and sold on January 1 was added 24 hours earlier.

UCI rules state that all equipment used must be publicly available as of January 1, 2021 and used in pre-Olympic competitions.

"Undergarments are quite important in terms of aerodynamic drag, which can be up to 3 percent," Park concluded.

Despite the complaints, the UCI has so far not changed its attitude, only warning the Danes and banning the use of the tape and base layers in question.

Despite the equipment changes and crashes, the Danish team won the final ride-off with a comfortable victory over Great Britain.

However, Park has not ruled out taking further action on the equipment choices of the Danish athletes.

"When our legal advisors see the documents, they will have to consider whether they really believe that the UCI is just not following their own rules and whether there is further action we should take."