Philip Hindes "deliberate" fall

[Bozuit]

What is the opinion of those more knowledgeable than me on his fall in the men's team sprint heat?

Originally he claimed to have fallen deliberately to get a restart since his start was bad. This is apparently within the rules but perhaps not within the spirit of them.

Is it "acceptable" in cycling?

[Busy Scissors]

I thought it was OK, not a big deal. It's well within the rules, as stated, but also the nature of it looked like a controlled crash to me. It's not like he's had a slightly sub-optimal start so is taking a cynical dive to press the try-again button, he's genuinely all over the shop and puts the bike down. The rule is there in the first place to accommodate these mishaps and show us the best teams racing over three laps.

A lot of the debate has arisen from the clear miscommunication between him and Jill Douglas (the interviewer) due to Hindes not being completely fluent in English (bbc clip here), and he did later say he didn't bail deliberately. I don't really buy this personally, but it doesn't really matter to me - I see it as a reasonable application of the rule by both Hindes and the race officials (who didn't bat an eyelid).