UCI set to introduce rider trackers at pro races

Cycling's world governing body the UCI has proposed the introduction of GPS trackers at all races to pinpoint riders' locations at all times.The plan comes weeks after the death of Briton Fin Tarling following a collision during the Volta a Portugal with a van, which had strayed on to the course as he rode alone. At a meeting at its headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, the UCI's Professional Cycling Council (PCC), which includes representatives of the UCI, riders, races and teams, "stressed the urgent need to put in place, as quickly as possible, a dedicated safety system allowing the real-time location of riders and vehicles to be tracked at all professional road cycling events, starting with those in the UCI World Tour and UCI Women's World Tour," said a statement.The trackers have already been used at last year's UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda - introduced after the death of 18-year-old Muriel Furrer at the previous year's event, who crashed in woodland but was not located for more than an hour and 20 minutes before receiving medical attention.The statement added: "Given safety remains an absolute priority, the UCI will therefore establish protocols and a regulatory framework for the use of real-time tracking systems at races. "UCI president David Lappartient reiterated that, in discussions on safety, stakeholders need to move past any disagreements on certain issues and act together."The latter refers to the differing opinions in the sport on how to tackle safety, including the introduction of improved safety equipment such as helmets.Tarling's crash is still under investigation by Portuguese authorities, and while it was not necessarily caused by a lack of knowledge of the 19-year-old's whereabouts, he was riding off the back of an already fragmented peloton. Sources have told BBC Sport that the location of riders during races is a big issue, with some teams losing contact with riders entirely until they arrive at the end of stages, which can be more than 200km.Typically one or two support vehicles follow a team of up to eight riders through a race or stage, many of whom will become detached from the peloton, and lose contact with a car's limited radio frequency.On Thursday, there were near crashes involving a rider and cars which had strayed on to the course during the fourth-tier Sauerlandrundfahrt race in Germany in which Louis Leidert of Lidl-Trek twice encountered vehicles during his time trial.Other safety proposals at the meeting included the standardisation of barrier safety in the final metres of stages, where riders are at greater risk of high-speed crashes, particularly in bunch sprints.Multi-rider pile-ups are frequent in sprints, and in 2020 Fabio Jakobsen was severely injured during a sprint at the Tour of Poland.Any proposals must be passed by the UCI's executive committee, which would follow a further meeting of the PCC.Other proposals included the potential redesigning of how cycling is structured overall - a summary of which will be discussed at the upcoming UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, Canada, from 20-27 September - live on the BBC.Many stakeholders in road cycling have asked for reform for several decades based on tackling many issues, including the distribution of income across the sport dictated by commercial agreements, such as television rights.Teams currently see nothing of TV rights money and rely almost entirely on sponsors to pay for ever-increasing performance budgets and expectations over rider salaries.There is currently no budget cap in road cycling and investments from team to team can vary hugely.