Tour of Britain 2008 - Highham out

Plowman Craven rider Alex Higham was disqaulified for "seeking illegal assistance" by holding on to a vehicle during stage one in London.

Despite an appeal, and support from other teams and officials who thought the decision unfair, Higham was forced to leave the race, reducing the team to five riders.

Manager Garry Beckett felt strongly that the decision to disqualify Higham was wrong.

"Alex had accepted a wheel from neutral service after hitting a pot hole, which had also twisted his handlebars," he explained.

"He was holding on to their car asking for an allen key to tighten his headset but unfortunately no-one in the vehicle spoke English and so he fought his way back up through the convoy to find us in the team car.

"While our mechanic was finding him the right size tool Alex again held on to the car and the commissaires decided that he had been using both vehicles to tow himself back up to the bunch.

"Alex just isn't the sort of guy to do that but despite our explanation and the support of virtually all the other teams, and some officials, the commissaires won't back down."

Team founder, and boss of Herts based geomatics company Plowman Craven, Simon Barnes, agreed with his manager.

"Alex is not a full time rider and he had taken a week off work as a GP to ride this race. It was meant to be the biggest ride of his career but it's turned into his biggest disappointment," he said.

"It's particularly sad since Alex comes from Newbury, but support for Alex among the peloton is strong as they believe he has been singled out unfairly when other similar incidents were ignored. It doesn't help the image of British races when the top continental guys see this sort of thing going on."