(Reuters) – The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) will study all crashes that occur in the 2021 international calendar and take steps to improve rider safety, the president of the sport’s governing body David Lappartient has said.
Calls for UCI to take action and protect riders have grown this season following a crash that left Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen in a coma and another involving Remco Evenepoel which left the Belgian prodigy with a fractured pelvis and a lung contusion.
“We don’t have the figures on crashes. So in 2021 for each crash in the international calendar I want to have a full survey on the number of crashes and the reasons they occur, so we can monitor the situation,” Lappartient told reporters on Saturday.
“We can take to Twitter to blame each other. We can fight between us or work together. But we have a common goal: we want the second one.
“It’s true we had some bad crashes with Jakobsen, Evenepoel and other riders. There’s a lot of emotion afterwards each time and we want to act but we realised it’s not the time to just put a plaster or a stitch on things.”
Speaking at the world championships in Imola, Lappartient said that issues concerning safety were an ongoing process.
“We have a lot of things to do to improve safety but we must agree on the point we need to work on and how we can do it,” Lappartient added.
“This can be by obligations and rules and also by changing riders’ habits… Of course, the barriers are an issue.
“We saw what happened in Poland. (Dylan) Groenewegen was first at fault for pushing Jakobsen and there’s an ongoing case with the Disciplinary Commission.”
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)
