Dhe former professional cyclist Fabian Wegmann defended the organizers of the Tour de Suisse after the fatal fall of professional cyclist Gino Mäder. “As an organizer, you can’t completely secure such a long route and secure every pass with safety fences so that a driver can’t stray off the road. That is not feasible in terms of time and money,” he said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
As head of sport, the 42-year-old supports the planning for the routes of the Deutschland Tour. Wegmann was “fixed and ready” when he got the sad news. “It’s a disaster,” he said.
“It was a driving error”
On Thursday, the 26-year-old Mäder fell into a ravine at high speed on the last kilometers of the fifth stage on the descent from the Albula Pass to the destination of La Punt and had to be resuscitated. A day later, the seriously injured Swiss died in hospital. The sixth stage that was actually planned was cancelled, instead the pros remembered their colleagues on a commemorative ride. Late on Friday evening, the race director announced that the tour would continue in consultation with Mäder’s family, the teams and the drivers.
“The organizer has organized this stage quite often in this way. You can’t just say that now only the organizer is responsible. That was a driving error, from what I noticed,” said Wegmann. The native of Munster, who won the Eschborn-Frankfurt classic twice during his playing days and rode the route in Switzerland himself, suggested: “In the future, we may have to make sure that descents are not made so close to the finish line.”
This descent would reach top speeds of more than 100 kilometers per hour. “This is dangerous. As a racing driver, you don’t always think about it, but it’s always present. I assume that Gino has already skied the descent. He didn’t compete for a stage win or for the general classification. There was no pressure that he had to take 100 percent risk,” added Wegmann.
World champion Remco Evenepoel from Belgium criticized the route of the organizers. It wasn’t a smart idea to place the finish of such a stage after a descent, said the 23-year-old, according to the Swiss newspaper “Blick”. “But you obviously still need more spectacle. Something just has to happen for you to react,” said Evenepoel.
Wegmann is currently planning the route of the Deutschland Tour, which begins at the end of August. Even if the descents there cannot be compared to the Tour de Suisse, safety is the top priority. Wegmann works with a common Norwegian safety system that is designed to help protect the professionals on the track.