The UCI has condemned the decision by five women’s professional teams to not “comply with the rules for the race related to the implementation of GPS trackers as a test for a new safety system” at the Tour de Romandie Féminin.
As a result, the five – Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, EF Education-Oatly, Lidl-Trek, Picnic PostNL and Visma-Lease a Bike – have all been excluded from taking part in the Women’s WorldTour race in Switzerland, which began on Friday.
The technology was trialled at the men’s Tour de Suisse earlier this year, and will be used by all riders at the World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda in September. It has come out of consultations with the UCI’s SafeR commission, and after Swiss 18-year-old Muriel Furrer died following a crash in the junior women’s road race at the event in Zürich, Switzerland last year.
In a statement, a UCI spokesperson said: “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 UCI regrets that certain teams have objected to the test by not nominating a rider to carry the tracking device and have therewith opted to be excluded from the Tour de Romandie Féminin. In view of this situation, the UCI shall consider if other measures are warranted in accordance with the UCI Regulations.”
“The UCI’s priority is to ensure the safety of riders. It works with the entire cycling family towards this goal, and the collaboration with most stakeholders is positive and constructive. It is deplorable to witness the refusal of certain teams to move forward together to protect the safety of riders, and the UCI condemns their non-cooperation.”
EF’s statement reads: “We are shocked and disappointed by the UCI’s decision to disqualify several teams, including ours, from the Tour de Romandie Féminin.
“The reason why they don’t want to nominate a rider themselves is still unknown and unanswered. Despite multiple requests by the teams over the last two days, the UCI commissaires were unable to demonstrate on the basis of which precise UCI rule teams are obligated to discriminate one rider against other riders in terms of obligations (except for officially referring to an email of the teams’s union) but have nevertheless decided to carry on and disqualify the teams with their riders.”
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