The UCI has introduced {that a} take a look at of a GPS monitoring system for rider security will likely be performed on the upcoming Tour de Romandie Féminin (August 15-17).
One rider per staff will carry a GPS monitoring gadget on the three-day Ladies’s WorldTour occasion as a part of a security initiative from the UCI and its SafeR challenge.
The race is a take a look at run forward of the UCI Street World Championships in Rwanda (September 21-28), the place all riders will carry a GPS tracker.
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“The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), in collaboration with the Tour de Romandie Féminin and taking part groups, will conduct a take a look at of a GPS security monitoring system throughout this 12 months’s version of the UCI Ladies’s WorldTour stage race,” the UCI introduced on Thursday.
“This initiative, a part of the UCI’s and SafeR’s ongoing efforts to reinforce rider security in skilled street biking, will see one rider per staff carry a GPS monitoring gadget. The identical know-how will likely be deployed on the 2025 UCI Street World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, the place all riders will carry the gadget.”
The transfer in direction of utilising GPS trackers for rider security has come within the wake of the tragic incident ultimately 12 months’s Worlds junior ladies’s street race in Zürich, the place Swiss rider Muriel Furrer died after crashing unnoticed on a forested a part of the course.
“The target of this take a look at is to refine the UCI’s security monitoring software program and set up protocols to supply real-time information to race management, medical groups and UCI Commissaires,” the UCI acknowledged.
“This technique will strengthen the monitoring of rider security throughout races and allow speedy response in case of incidents.”
It is not the primary time {that a} top-level race has used GPS monitoring units. Organisers of the lads’s Tour de Suisse and the Tour de Suisse Ladies applied the know-how for the pair of June races – a primary in skilled biking.
Each races featured a safety centre with entry to all rider GPS alerts, race tv feeds, and a climate radar. Through the races, these monitoring the GPS alerts would obtain an alarm if any GPS tracker stopped transferring for 30 seconds, if the velocity of a tracker modified abnormally, or if a tracker left the street.
The UCI has not but launched particulars on the deliberate implementation of the GPS trackers or how the monitoring will work for the Tour de Romandie Féminin and UCI Street World Championships. The federation did notice that it could work with race organisers and stakeholders within the sport to implement the know-how additional.
“This represents an essential step ahead in guaranteeing the security of riders, and the UCI will proceed to work carefully with occasion organisers and all stakeholders on the broader implementation of such know-how within the coming seasons,” the UCI acknowledged.
Cyclingnews has contacted the UCI for remark.
