OPINION | Who protects the riders? Tour de Romandie Féminin shows cycling’s blind spot

The Tour de Romandie Féminin was supposed to be an important even in women’s cycling, and cycling as a whole. Instead, it has turned into a disgrace. On the opening day of the race, six of the biggest WorldTour teams were disqualified after refusing to comply with the UCI’s rules on a new GPS tracking system. Team Visma | Lease a Bike, AG Insurance-Soudal, EF-Oatly-Cannondale, Canyon//SRAM, Team Picnic PostNL, and Lidl-Trek were all thrown out before the racing had even started. This was not a minor dispute about logistics. This was a fundamental clash between teams, organisers, and the governing body, and the people left paying the price were the riders and fans.

None of the 3 main parties (the teams, UCI, and race organisers), will take responsibility. To me, each of them have forgotten the harrowing reason why this trial was supposed to happen in the first place, and that reveals a damning truth about the current state of accountability in cycling.

The organisers released a statement that spoke volumes: “We find it regrettable and unfortunate, to say the least, that a positive solution could not be found.” That sentence alone sums up the utter failure of communication and compromise that has plagued this situation. Instead of coming together around an issue as important as safety, cycling’s stakeholders once again descended into division.

The UCI, for its part, lashed out at the teams: “The decision of these teams to oppose the specific rules for the event is surprising, and undermines the cycling family’s efforts to ensure the safety of all riders in road cycling by developing this new technology.” The finger-pointing is clear. Nobody, not the governing body, not the organisers, not the teams, is willing to accept that they could and should have handled this better.

Let’s remind ourselves why this technology is being tested in the first place.

The new GPS tracking system was introduced as part of cycling’s wider safety efforts. It was designed to ensure that riders could be located quickly in case of a crash, particularly in difficult terrain or poor conditions. This was not dreamed up in a vacuum. Nearly a year ago, the cycling world was shaken by the death of 18-year-old Swiss rider Muriel Furrer at the World Championships in Zurich. Competing in the junior women’s road race, she crashed off the road and into a wooded area. Torrential rain had already made conditions dangerous, and she suffered a severe head injury and, although she was eventually airlifted to hospital, she did not survive.

What made her death all the more painful was the delay in finding her. For a period of time, nobody knew exactly where she was. The reality is impossible to ignore: if a GPS system had been in place then, perhaps she would have been located faster. Perhaps medical care could have reached her sooner. Perhaps she might still be alive, although of course, nobody can say for certain. But the potential was there. And yet, instead of uniting around the obvious need to improve safety, the sport has now descended into a fight that has left one of the biggest women’s stage races in chaos.

In short, it is a disgrace. A young women unacceptably lost her life, when she should have been at the start of a long a fruitful career. The impact that will have had on her loved ones is harrowing, and this sorry state of affairs at the Tour de Romandie will be doing nothing to ease their pain.

The UCI, teams, and organisers, have one job: maximise safety. No, cycling is never going to be a completely safe sport. But,the closer it can be to 100% safe the better. At the very least, all the stakeholders should be united in trying to achieve that.

Muriel Furrer was not just another name in the peloton, she was a double silver medallist at the Swiss national championships, a rider with clear potential. Her federation described her as “a warm-hearted and wonderful young woman who always had a smile on her face.”

The UCI itself called her “a rider with a bright future ahead of her.” British Cycling added that she was “a devoted young rider with a bright future ahead of her and will be sorely missed by the cycling world.” Tributes poured in from across the globe, from teams like Movistar to governing bodies, all expressing grief at a life cut far too short. To honour Muriel Furrer means to change the sport, to make sure such tragedies are less likely in the future.

That is what makes the events in Romandie so appalling. Earlier this month, the UCI presented the GPS project in glowing terms. In collaboration with the SafeR campaign, they announced: “This represents an important step forward in ensuring the safety of female cyclists, and the UCI will continue to work closely with event organizers and all stakeholders to implement this technology more widely in the coming seasons.”

On paper, that sounded like progress. But the reality on the ground has been anything but collaborative. The teams were told to install the devices themselves and accept liability for loss or damage in case of crashes. That was never going to be accepted without resistance. Instead of finding a compromise, whether through shared responsibility, insurance coverage, or technical support, the UCI and organisers stood firm, the teams pushed back, and the end result was catastrophic: six top squads excluded, the race diminished, and the credibility of the sport in tatters.

What does this say to riders? It says that when push comes to shove, safety is not a shared priority. It says that when technology is introduced, the burden falls squarely on the athletes and their teams rather than being a collective effort. And it says that, nearly twelve months after Muriel Furrer’s death, the sport has learned nothing.

Of course, it is difficult to pin all the blame on one party. The UCI deserves criticism for its rigidity and its lack of foresight. The organisers failed to broker a solution that would have kept their star teams in the race. And the teams, too, must accept some responsibility for digging in their heels instead of finding a way forward. But ultimately, the entire system has failed. When the governing body, the organisers, and the teams cannot agree on how to protect riders, then what hope is there for improving safety in the sport?

Cycling has always prided itself on being a community, a “family” bound by shared risks and the reality of the dangers of racing on the roads. The UCI itself used the phrase “cycling family” in its statement, yet a family does not let internal squabbles come before the safety of its members. A family does not ignore the memory of a lost child. Muriel Furrer deserved better, and the current peloton deserves better.

The fact that a pilot effort to protect riders has resulted in humiliation for one of the sport’s biggest women’s races is beyond farcical. It is a scandal. Professional sport cannot continue to treat safety as a political football, to be kicked back and forth between organisations until nobody takes responsibility. If cycling truly wishes to honour the memory of Muriel Furrer, it needs to do more than issue condolences and stand for a minute’s silence. It needs to get serious about change.

Until then, the disarray we witnessed at the Tour de Romandie Féminin will stand as a damning symbol of a sport that claims to care about its riders’ lives, but cannot even agree on how to protect them.