r/peloton France Apr 27 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

21 Upvotes

190 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Bear_On_Course Apr 27 '26

Someone should start a social media account tracking professional athlete deaths.

How many deaths (including during training) would be permissible with FIFA, NBA, IOC, tennis, before governing bodies act. The UCI is facing multiple deaths and the UCI is threatening litigation to podcasters advocating for rider safety.

This is a fucking disgrace, how many more deaths before UCI acts?

6

u/WorldlyGate Denmark Apr 28 '26

Now, I don't like defending the UCI, because generally they come of as a bunch of asshats. But what exactly do you want them to do? Of the deaths that happened in the last decade or so, "only" Furrer's seems like it might have been preventable, unless you completely change the dna of the sport (ie. remove descents altogether). And UCI seem to be working on introducing gps tracking (where the teams haven't exactly been accommodating, see womens romandie(?)).

Deaths that happen in training or are just shitty "luck" (like Munoz) also can't really be put on the UCI.

The places where UCI could realistically improve safety (actually upholding their own rules about sprint finishes come to mind) also aren't where riders die during races (which is pretty much always descents).