The Tour de France and the fine line between spectacle and risk

The Tour de France starts in Bilbao on Saturday accompanied by a security debate triggered by the death of Gino Mäder. However, the line between spectacle and too much risk remains narrow in cycling.

Bilbao has dressed up: The starting point for the most important cycling party of the year is decorated with yellow flags and flags in the Basque colors. And as is always the case when a special event is coming up, the guests have also dressed up, some even traveled to the green hills of the Basque Country with new clothes for the Grand Départ of the Tour de France.

Many teams present a new jersey at the start of the tour. The Bahrain-Victorious team has also changed their work clothes for the most important race of the year. The strong red is gone. The jersey is now dominated by predominantly white fabric that’s crossed with a pale blue pattern. Collar, sleeves and waistband are black. It certainly wasn’t planned that way, but it now looks as if the team’s drivers are wearing a black ribbon.

It began with the grief security debate

It was almost two weeks ago that the Swiss professional cyclist Gino Mäder, who rides for Bahrain-Victorious, fell into a gorge on a descent at the Tour de Suisse and died a day later as a result of the accident. After the news of his death, heartbreaking scenes played out: deeply shaken professional cyclists, crying in their arms, looking for support and consolation after the death of a colleague.

And with the mourning, a debate about the safety of cycling began, which will now also accompany the Tour de France in the next three weeks. On Friday (06/30/2023) the world cycling association UCI, riders’ unions and associations of professional teams presented their ideas on how cycling should become safer.

independent security commission – from 2025

In the future, an independent commission called “SafeR“Evaluate the safety standards in cycling and make suggestions for improvement, which should then be included in the rules by the UCI. So far, a lot has remained vague. It should be definitively established”SafeR” in January 2025, but so far it is not clear what legal form this commission should have – and the financing has not yet been determined either.

UCI President David Lappartient refers in this context to the anti-doping fight, which the world association in the course of the doping machinations of Lance Armstrong outsourced to an independent commission, which is now under the umbrella of the International Testing Agency (ITA) hiked.

Together at a table

The biggest success for those involved was that the topic of safety was now being discussed together. “We don’t want the different members of the cycling family to blame each other, we want to work together to make cycling safer”stressed lappart.

In fact, there are various causes of serious falls, the behavior of professional cyclists, the vehicles in the race, the route and more and more traffic calming measures that make route design more difficult. So it certainly makes sense to actually sit down at a table.

Number of accidents increases

The fact that joint measures are urgently needed is also shown by the figures that the former professional cyclist Michael Rogers presented in Bilbao. The Australian now works for the UCI as a Head of Innovation and is now one of the co-founders of the initiative “SafeR“. As a first step, they created a database that records the number of accidents, falls and injuries.

The number has increased significantly since 2018. In the first six months alone, there were 24 percent more such events than in the same period last year. Most accidents happen in the last 40 kilometers – when the drivers are fighting for victory.

The risk continues

Whether accidents like Gino Mäder’s can no longer happen with an independent safety unit? “I think it’s impossible to get the risk out of cycling completely”says Ralph Denk, head of the German World Tour teams Bora-hansgrohe. For that you would probably have to delete the Alps and Pyrenees from the program, but that’s what makes cycling so special: “Then maybe you can no longer say: These are the heroes of the country road.”

However, these “heroes” themselves have a very good idea of ​​how to at least minimize the risk, especially in the mountains, without completely removing the mountain stages from the program. Some riders have been demanding for a long time that, for example, you should refrain from placing finishes in the valley at the end of a descent and on that fateful day in Switzerland. “It just pushes us even more to the limit”says Nikias Arndt, one of Mäder’s teammates: “And the question is, do we still have to artificially challenge this limit?”

Prudhomme: “Cycling is brutal”

This is primarily a question for the race organizers like the ASO, who Tour de France organized. There it is emphasized that everything is done for the safety of the professional cyclists. But this year’s route again balances on the fine line between spectacle and risk.

Even the first stage, which is traditionally hectic, leads over narrow streets and five short but steep climbs and is intended to be the first duel between the big favorites for overall victory. In the third week, the 14th stage in the Alps is nine kilometers downhill to the finish morzine – on a route that is not on the tour program for the first time.

tour director Christian Prudhommea self-confessed cycling romantic, pointed out that cycling is a brutal sport: “And the champions know that too.” In addition, are alone in department Sayoyen – where much of the Alpine stages take place in the third week of the tour – 100 kilometers of road has been resurfaced, making the route safer. In the 21 stage finals alone, around 5,000 warnings will be put out for the drivers. “But cyclists are artists, you shouldn’t confront them with too many hints”says Prudhomme.

Drivers go to the limit

The artists themselves not only take a special risk on descents when they are in the fight for stage victory or the overall ranking. In the back rows, the players sometimes go to the limit earlier for other reasons. For example the sprinters who, in the fight against the time limit in the mountains, try to catch up a little on the downhills they lost in terms of time.

“It’s often the drivers themselves who make it more dangerous”, says Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel. And Simon Geschke, who devotedly fought for the mountain jersey last year, also believes that canceling finishes at the end of steep descents would hardly solve the problem. “Risks are always taken, even at the beginning of a stage”says Geschke.

From the point of view of Nikias Arndt, there is another aspect. “The pressure is increasing every year”, says the 31-year-old professional cyclist. Pressure that, in his view, arises less from the ongoing struggle for the limited number of jobs in cycling and much more from its rapid professionalization over the past ten years. The teams left nothing to chance today: nutrition plans, training control, support for the athletes. Associated with the expectation of performing. As a caring professional cyclist, you definitely want to give something back, says Arndt.

“Everyone has two brakes”

And often enough drivers are rewarded for their willingness to take risks. Last year Brit Tom Pidcock celebrated a much-vaunted stage win at Alpe d’Huez. He laid the foundation for this on a rapid descent from the Galibier, during which he reached speeds of up to 105 kilometers per hour and overtook his competitors on the outside of the curves – a life-threatening risk, celebrated as a heroic act.

And yet the debate is not superfluous. “In the end, as racers, as organizers, as teams, we have to try everything in our power to make cycling as safe as possible, just try to turn every screw.”says John Degenkolb: “So that we can do it like in Formula 1, get more and more security there.”

The initiative for “SafeR” may be a first step on this path. But until then, what the German professional cyclist Georg Zimmermann remarked quite dryly applies: “Everyone has two brakes mounted on their bikes and everyone decides for themselves how much they use them.”