Cycling has always been a dangerous sport and it will remain intrinsically dangerous: racing on the roads and the mountains can never be perfectly safe.
But there are certain road conditions that can be controlled in order to avoid heavy accidents, such as last weeks’ crash that left Fabio Jakobsen (NET) in coma. At least it should be expected that organizers do what is in their hands.
That is why the CPA riders association decided to protest (Cyclingnews) by neutralizing the early kilometers in stage 5 of the Critérium du Dauphiné.
This happened one day after Steven Kruijswijk (NET) and Emanuel Buchmann (GER) -Tour de France win candidates- crashed and were injured in separate accidents at Stage 4 which, the CPA argued, had poor surface conditions.
Primož Roglič (SLO), who led the Overall and Points Classification abandoned in that stage after suffering injuries. Egan Bernal (COL) had also abandoned before the stage for an non-accident related injury. All of this helped his compatriot Daniel Martínez (COL) win the race, while Wout Van Aert (BEL) took the points win.
The other recently successful Belgian, Remco Evenepoel (Jakobsen’s teammate, pictured) had an accident following a crash at Il Lombardia, where he fell off a bridge, resulting in a pelvis fracture and a bruised lung.
The Deceuninck-Quickstep rider was transported back to Belgium (Deceuninck-Quickstep), and team manager Patrick Lefevere criticized UCI for the dangerous course (Insidethegames).
In the same race, Max Schachmann (GER, Paris-Nice winner) was taken down by a car (Cycingweekly) and got injured. The race was won by Jakob Fuglsang (DEN, Astana).
“The CPA asks the UCI and all stakeholders of cycling to set up a round table to start the revision of the regulations to get a clear feedback in terms of prevention and sanctions towards the race organizers. The purpose of this is to protect the physical integrity of the riders and to allow them to carry out their work in greater safety,” the CPA said.
