ANALYSIS: The UCI proved to be a mafia at a World Championship haunted by the death of Muriel Furrer

It was undoubtedly the Pogacar and Kopecky World Championships and many were happy with the results. However, it should not be remembered as the Pogacar and Kopecky World Championships. It was the World Championship of Muriel Furrer, an 18-year-old girl who should have been saved, should not have died and should be with us today. I have mixed feelings. I feel sad and I am angry because you cannot spend your time talking about safety in cycling and continue to watch deaths in races organized by the UCI.

Whenever we receive news of the death of a cyclist in a race, the UCI quickly takes action with statements such as “The UCI regrets the loss” or “It is too early to discuss how we could have prevented this”. This time they took their hypocrisy a step further by banning all staff on duty at the race from speaking as an investigation was underway. The UCI is quick to express its regret, but is it also taking quick action? What action? How many measures has the UCI taken over the past ten years to protect and guarantee the safety of cycling?

The UCI implements the rules, does not comply with them or enforce them.

This year, the UCI made official a new high temperature protocol to protect cyclists from racing in temperatures of 40 degrees, as had happened in the 2023 Tour de France. However, in the 2024 Tour of Spain, cyclists faced a very severe heat wave and the protocol remained on the back burner. Why do racing organizations go unpunished and not held accountable for frequent safety lapses, for not adhering to UCI guidelines, as recently happened in Itzulia, Basque Country? Vingegaard had warned six months earlier that the descent and that bend were dangerous, but the organization never took the blame and placed it on the cyclists.

The same UCI guidelines say that there should be no corners in a race, while a sprint finish is planned in the last 200 meters. This leads to trajectory deviations, more touches and of course more crashes. Another one that’s made to look good on paper.

The UCI is testing the use of earphones during races and the penalties for yellow cards. This was announced with great pomp and ceremony at a press conference in July, but those same race radios do save lives, as was the case of Jenthe Biermans, who fell into a ravine on the way to the Passo del Mortirolo in this year’s Tour of Italy. and escaped because his fellow drivers radioed the cars with accurate information about where he had fallen. But the UCI wants to abolish radios!!!

Richard Plugge has been ousted as CEO of the SafeR organisation, which was set up to ensure safer racing conditions for cyclists by trying to avoid dangerous situations during races. The project is still in the doldrums, because the AIGCP has many interests, interests that are put above the safety of cyclists and the sport. Who is interested in maintaining these political games at the expense of security, and why?

What about the consistency? I bring this up because I have seen rules applied very strictly to some, while to others nothing happens at all. Examples of this? Zurich 2024 World Championships, elite men’s road race. Mathieu van der Poel should have been disqualified from the match after taking a walk during the match, endangering the spectators present. Marlen Reusser did the same in a race and was immediately disqualified. In 2023, during the Tour of Flanders, Pole Filip Maciejuk, then with Lidl-Trek, was suspended for several months due to an incident identical to that of Lorena Wiebes a week earlier in Brugge-De Panne. And Tim Merlier at the 2024 European Championship, when he went behind the cars halfway and eventually won the race. Double standards?

According to known figures, four cyclists died during races in which they participated between 1971 and 1980, five between 1981 and 1990, six between 1991 and 2000. From 2001 to 2010, nine cyclists died during races, while in the last ten years between 2011 and 2020, 21 died. cyclists killed. In 2023 and 2024, 4 cyclists died during competitions. This is a clearly incomplete list that does not take into account the many tragedies that have occurred in the women’s leagues and at youth level.

David Lappartient has been president of the UCI since 2017 and always shirks responsibility when something serious happens. Muriel Furrer was 18 years old, fell during her race and found herself unattended somewhere in the middle of the forest for over an hour. If Muriel had had a transponder under her saddle, she would have been rescued sooner. Why is the Transponder only used on the Elites? But Lappartient has disgustedly spilled the beans and said, without any statistical basis, that “50% of cyclists’ accidents are due to their behaviour”.

This sums up the UCI’s lack of responsibility when it comes to safety. The UCI, in the person of its president, should resign after the tragic events of recent days. Cycling needs people to ensure the safety of cyclists, and Lappartient, who was already excluded, has now reached the point of contempt. Cycling needs new blood that does not move in political circles. We need the parents of the young people who see their children playing this sport to make sure that even though it is always a dangerous sport, they have someone to look after them and their safety.