Why are there some riders with minus points in the tour de france mountain standings?

Question

When you look at the full standings for the mountains competition in the tour de france, why are there, at the moment, 4 riders on -5 and 1 rider on -10 points?

Answer 1

Not sure where you saw that. I just went to the TdF website and they show the mountain points in positive numbers. Maybe the listing you saw was showing the number of points behind the leader?

Answer 2

I haven't seen that in the KOM standings.

I believe the only deductions given are for drafting behind cars when trying to catch up to the peliton and by drafting behind a rider in the time trial. I also believe that deduction is given to your total time, not mountain pts or sprinter pts.