When David Lappartient arrived in Zurich’s Kongresshaus on Saturday morning, he understood that the UCI president’s traditional World Championships press conference would focus primarily on the tragic death of Muriel Furrer.
“I think the best thing is to answer the questions you will have,” Lappartient said after he took a seat in the press room.
The questions were duly asked, but direct answers were in short supply.
Furrer, a Swiss international in road, cyclocross and mountain bike, sustained a critical head injury when she crashed in the junior women’s road race on Thursday morning in circumstances that remain unclear. The 18-year-old’s death was announced on Friday afternoon.
To this point, the UCI, the Zurich Worlds organising committee, and local authorities have provided little to no information on the crash, including its precise location and the time it took place. They have declined to state how soon Furrer was located, how quickly she received medical treatment, and at what time she was airlifted to the hospital.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported that Swiss Air-Rescue (REGA) confirmed that its first helicopter mission in the Zurich area on Thursday had departed at 12:52 pm, more than an hour after the finish of the junior women’s road race. It is believed – though it has not been confirmed – that Furrer crashed near Küsnacht with more than 30km left to race.
Asked about that report in a short media briefing after Furrer’s death was announced on Friday, Olivier Senn of the organising committee said, “There is no secure information, and that means everything that is out there is rumour.”
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The same question also went unanswered on Saturday morning, even though Lappartient spoke at greater length than Senn and UCI sports manager Peter Van den Abeele had done from the same podium the previous afternoon. As ever, Lappartient’s answers were effusive, but all those words still yielded little substantial information.
“It will be the job of the police to establish all this,” Lappartient said when asked to confirm the circumstances of Furrer’s fatal crash. “I will not comment directly about this because there are ongoing investigations from the police, that’s their job, I can’t answer. Everybody has their mission when it comes to an accident like this, it’s up to the police to establish everything.
“It may take some time, it’s not sure we will have it before the end of these World Championships. They will go at their speed and follow their procedures, and we will respect their job.”
Although Furrer crashed on Thursday morning, the UCI did not make a statement about the incident and her condition until 6:00 p.m. that evening. Lappartient did not specify precisely when he first became aware of the situation and its gravity.
“When we have this kind of information, we have to also evaluate with the family and the national federation which kind of information to provide and whether we have to provide the information immediately or not,” said Lappartient, who defended the decision to proceed with the rest of the racing programme on the very circuit where the fatal accident took place.
“There is also the organising committee, the public authorities and the police, so a decision like this is one we take together. Collectively, we thought that to stop the racing was not the best way to celebrate the memory of Muriel.”
Digressions
Furrer’s death is the latest in a long litany of fatal crashes in international-level bike races. Earlier this year, Norwegian rider André Drege died following a crash at the Tour of Austria, while Swiss cycling is still mourning Gino Mäder, who died following a crash at last year’s Tour de Suisse.
The most shocking aspect of Furrer’s fatal crash, however, is the possibility that she lay injured and undiscovered for such a long time on a circuit around one of the wealthiest cities on the planet, and during a bike race that was being broadcast live to a global audience.
The UCI does not allow the use of radio earpieces in World Championships road races, but Lappartient downplayed the idea that the rule should be revised given the circumstances of this tragedy.
“I don’t want this accident to be used in the discussions about the radio,” he said. “The crash happened. We don’t know how, that will be the job of the police. It’s too early to have any kind of conclusion to say it would have been possible to find her earlier with the radio or not. We don’t know. It’s better not to say something when you don’t know.”
When Lappartient was asked to outline what the UCI would do to improve safety, he discussed the dangers of training on open roads at far greater length than the specific question of making bike races like the UCI’s own World Championships more secure for participants.
“Most of the accidents are not in competition, they are in training sessions,” Lappartient said. “Some riders died or were seriously injured in accidents during their training sessions. The figures are really more important than races, but of course, races are on TV or with fans, so the impact is huge.”
A digression about Lappartient’s own encounter with Zurich traffic during a ride last Sunday morning followed before he touched briefly on the SafeR programme, a project launched in the aftermath of Mäder’s death last year and funded by race organisers, riders, teams and the UCI. “We said, ‘Look, that’s our common goal, to ensure a safer cycling.'”
Credibility
The UCI is ultimately responsible for setting and maintaining the safety rules for the sport of cycling, however. Cyclingnews asked Lappartient if the governing body’s credibility in enforcing those rules has been damaged by what transpired here during its own flagship event, the UCI Road World Championships.
“I don’t think so,” Lappartient said. “When there is a crash, there is always somebody to be ‘guilty,’ and most of the time, it’s easy to say that it’s the UCI, just like in politics it’s easy to say that it’s the government. But that’s not always the case.
“It’s easy to say it can affect the credibility of the institution or the president. But when you look at the circumstances: we don’t know exactly the circumstances. I’m not a guy to take conclusions when I don’t know the circumstances.
“If we have responsibilities – and I’m not thinking just about this specific accident – but when we have responsibilities, we have to take our responsibilities and address those responsibilities properly. This is what people are waiting for from us. We have also to improve our system, and this is what we’ve done.”
As the lengthy answer continued, Lappartient veered from the question he had been asked – on the UCI’s credibility as the arbiter on safety in cycling – and onto a different topic altogether, namely the governing body’s ban on Tramadol and its proposed ban on Tapentadol. He eventually circled back into the general vicinity of the topic at hand.
“We have been very strict with race organisers, and some of them have been removed from the calendar, which was not the case in the past,” Lappartient said. “The first mission for the organisers is to provide a safe environment for the athletes, but you also know from the survey we did with Gent University is that 50% of the crashes happened by bad behaviours, I would say, so there is not only one topic. Of course, it’s not so easy. It’s not always the fault of the organiser or the UCI, even if we need to work collectively on this.”
Lappartient’s press conference came to an end after 45 minutes. In truth, it could have ended after five minutes or five hours; the outcome would surely have been the same.
Two days after Muriel Furrer’s fatal crash, mere kilometres from her home in Egg, the key questions remain unanswered.
