Johan Bruyneel on Prudhomme and Lappartient's calls for slower speeds in cycling to improve safety - "I found it shocking to see the statements of those two leaders"

Over the past few months there has been more a conversation on how the increase of speed and tension in pro cycling is leading to more crashes and tragic accidents. Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme specially is worried about this, but it's not a situation that is likely to reverse. Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin have weighed in on this question.

On the most recent episode of 'The Move' podcast, the two have prioritized this very question. Whilst the increase in aerodynamics and performances lead to greater speeds, it is in most part the increasingly difficult and dangerous fights for positioning - both preparing for sprints or mid-stage that lead to this.

In recent years, more and more teams have begun focusing on every single detail about the races they take part in, which includes positioning for any dangerous descent, narrow point or climb. Most teams race alike, and this increase in tension combined with speeds has led to more mass crashes. Such cases this year such as the Itzulia Basque Country crash that involved Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic; or the Dwars door Vlaanderen fall which involved Wout van Aert, Biniam Girmay and Mads Pedersen - which have involved high speed - have had disastrous consequences.

Martin argued that it is very hard to avoid altogether dangerous roads in a sport where the norm are 200 kilometers of racing on public roads, "It gets more complicated where they have said 'this descent is too bumpy', I mean I guess you could write that to the pre-ride charter with whatever pre-ride organization this is", to which Bruyneel responded that "there's always going to be places that are more dangerous than others and that's always going to be the case. The crash in Basque Country was obviously because of the state of the road. The question is where they informed, and there's so much at stake that you don't want to break, you don't want to lose 10 positions in the downhill because then you'll never make it back to the front. It's not black or white".

The Belgian pundit has once again hit at the UCI throughout this podcast, and it was not an exception in this instance when tackling the 'slower speed' debate: "I found it shocking to see the statements of those two leaders of the sport of cycling, Prudhomme is the boss of the Tour, and Lappartient is the boss of cycling (UCI president, ed.)".