Muriel Furrer's death at UCI Road World Championships another example of the failings and risk of the peloton
analysis
SBy Simon Smale
Topic:Road Cycle Racing
Muriel Furrer's death cast a necessary pall over the Cycling Road World Championships in Zurich.
Cycling is, once more, in mourning.
Champions are traditionally celebrated with rainbows at the world championships. This year's event will carry with it a pall of darkness instead.
A week where the UCI would hope for photos of glory will now be forever associated with a greyscale photo of remembrance.
Swiss teenager Muriel Furrer is the latest rider to die on the roads in competition, succumbing on Friday to a serious head injury after a crash on Thursday.
She was 18.
Muriel Furrer finished 44th in the women's junior time trial earlier in the week.
Despite cancelling a number of side events, the UCI confirmed that the women's road race on Saturday and the men's road race on Sunday — both of which would pass the same roads where the accident happened — would go ahead.
They said that was the wish of Furrer's family, who requested privacy as they grieved.
The under-23 men's road race began before the death of Furrer was announced.
The riders in that race rode the same roads, with an ominous barricade over the side of the road where Furrier crashed through and to her death. They were unaware of the full extent of her loss as they raced, hurriedly told by organisers as they truncated celebrations as they crossed the line.
Zurich's central Sechseläutenplatz, a site of joy earlier in the week, was as downcast as the ominous clouds in the sky.
Furrer had finished 44th in the junior women's time trial held earlier this week and had finished second in the Swiss junior national championships in both the road race and time trial.
A talented cyclo-cross rider as well as her proficiency on the road, Furrer had featured at the world mountain bike championships in Andorra last month and finished second in the Swiss cross championships in January.
Muriel Furrer competed in cyclo-cross as well as on the road.
A promising, fledgling career brutally extinguished on a forested Swiss hillside.
But, perhaps brutally, the details of her life mean everything and nothing in such tragic instances.
Her impressive palmares and future prospects all distilled into a sombre black-and-white photo of remembrance.
She is just the latest casualty of the road.
A long list of casualties
Crashes are a par for the course in pro cycling.
Cycling is dangerous.
Ask Jay Vine after his horrific crash at the Tour of the Basque Country earlier this year.
Ask Wout van Aert, whose crash at the Vuelta ruled him out of this World Championships.
Ask Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen, whose injuries from a crash in a downhill sprint at the Tour de Pologne in 2020 left him in a coma and needing a full facial reconstruction.
Because you can't ask Furrer.
Or André Drege, the 25-year-old who died at the Tour of Austria this year.
Or Swiss rider Gino Mäder, who crashed into a ravine on the descent of the Albula Pass at the Tour de Suisse in 2023.
Or 22-year-old Belgian Bjorg Lambrecht, who died after crashing into a concrete structure at the 2019 Tour de Pologne.
That's just a handful of riders who have died in crashes over the past few years.
The professional peloton has already paused to honour a fallen colleague once in 2024.
Where does the accountability lie for this roll call of lives that have been robbed of their future?
Cycling is a risky pursuit — the speeds involved are just too high.
Bunch sprints will forever be intrinsically dangerous, with riders going full gas at speeds often in excess of 70kph in a limited space.
The UCI has addressed this, with a system of penalties being issued for those riders endangering their rivals with irregular lines in sprints.
Throw in the quite literal impact of cars and other vehicles in races, plus supporters, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Just look at the finale of stage four at the Clásico RCN in Colombia earlier this week, where the charging peloton nearly collected a man crossing the road, only then have to split to avoid a stray dog.
But that's not the issue for now — the setting for descents is.
Cycling is a sport that takes place in the wild, on roads with no run-off areas in conditions that are impossibly variable.
The necessity for lightness ensures that safety equipment consists solely of a lightweight plastic cap on top of a rider's head and a millimetre-thick layer of Lycra.
Supporters have, for generations, lauded the climbers — the mountainside battles where the grand tours are decided are such an intrinsic part of the sport that it is infeasible to remove the downhills.
What goes up must come down.
The UCI is in an unenviable position in that regard, but still the organisation must accept some blame in the selection of the roads, the location and application of marshals.
Concerning reports from Swiss newspaper Blick suggested Furrer was not discovered for a significant period of time after crashing.
Peter van den Abeele of the Union Cycliste Internationale was devastated when delivering the news.
The UCI's sports director, Peter van den Abeele, told reporters on Friday that "the accident is still under investigation by the relevant, competent public authorities" while Olivier Senn, the Zurich 2024 deputy director, when asked to give more details even about where the accident had happened, said "we can't comment on this".
"We have no secured information for the time being. Everything out there is rumours. Please use facts and not rumours," Senn said at a press conference.
"We've lost a promising young athlete with a full life ahead of her, which is very hard to take.
"We are all struggling to continue in this situation, but nevertheless we have to and we will keep going, supporting everyone that needs it as good as we can.
"We have amended the event programme. We will be flying the flags half-mast for the rest of the World Championships, we will have a reduced podium ceremony today. We have cancelled all evening activities for tonight and the UCI Gala tomorrow.
"There might be further decisions taken, and we are focusing on the bigger events tomorrow and Sunday.
"Racing will go on, as it was the wish of the family that this will happen."
Sprints will always be a danger to everyone involved in them.
Van den Abeele said the use of GPS trackers in the race would be looked into by the relevant authorities.
International races, where riders represent their nations instead of their factory teams, are typified by having no race radios for riders to communicate with race directors.
This no doubt adds to the drama and unpredictability of such races — but is there a safety aspect to consider?
It comes after riders regularly speak out about the conditions of the roads they race in.
Remco Evenepoel, time trial world champion and 2022 road race champion, has frequently blasted organisers of races for unsafe conditions.
The race to create a spectacle is at odds with the safety of those providing the drama and whose lives are at risk.
One can't go up without going down again.
Ben O'Connor memorably called Giro d'Italia organisers "dinosaurs" after a botched stage in atrocious, snowy conditions in the high Alps.
His heartbreaking reaction to the death of Mäder, his friend, was captured by the cameras for Netflix's Tour de France documentary, Tour de France: Au cœur du peloton.
"His death reminded us of our fragility," O'Connor said in the doco.
Julian Alaphilippe was also asked what Mäder's death meant.
"We are nothing on Earth and even less on a bike," two-time world champion Alaphilippe said.
"Just mentioning Gino gives me the chills."
Where F1's fly-on-the-wall Netflix offering Drive to Survive has profited from the background machinations of the pit lane in the absence of much meaningful on-track action, cycling's equivalent has been accused of fetishising crashes to drum up the drama.
Both the elite men's and women's races this weekend will pass by the location of Furrer's fatal accident.
Wet weather is forecast, so Senn said extra safety checks had been carried out on downhill stretches of the course.
"We have slightly amended the staff onsite," he said.
"We believe we always do the maximum on the safety and security of the riders."
The roads were wet on Thursday, too.
Why no consideration was made for these risks must be addressed by the authorities.
Because the death even of one rider is one too many.
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