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Team Ineos' Australian world champion cyclist Rohan Dennis has closed his Instagram and Twitter accounts after appearing to break Spain's lockdown law over the weekend.
The talented 29-year-old from Adelaide is the world time-trial champion but has a reputation as a loose cannon and quit team Bahrain-Merida after parking his bike by the team bus and disappearing during the last Tour de France.
This weekend he voiced his dissatisfaction on Instagram with the length of the lockdown before deleting his accounts.
Screen grabs from other Instagram users showed posts such as: "Day 34 - cracked and left the house. #covid19 can suck my ass and so can #quarantine."
The accompanying photo appeared to have been taken on a country-road from a car.
Ineos is active in the fight against Covid-19, producing hand sanitiser and delivering it to hospitals.
Having won stages on all three Grand Tours Dennis joined Ineos for the 2020 season and would likely have been a contender for May's postponed Giro d'Italia and favourite to defend his world crown in Switzerland in September.
Dennis lives in Girona, close to the Pyrenees.
Dennis is widely reported to have told online critics he was only being honest and asking if they would prefer him to lie.
The rider famously climbed off his bike early in the 12th stage of the Tour de France in 2019 with no explanation a day ahead of a tim-trial he would have been favourite to win.
Dennis was at that time being primed as a Grand Tour contender who could pulverise time-trials and defend himself on the climbs, as he did when coming second on the 2019 Tour de Suisse.
Dennis won the first stage of the 2015 Tour de France and briefly wore the famed yellow jersey.
