Brennan: 'Disgraceful that nothing has changed' after Fin Tarling's death

Britain's Matthew Brennan said it is "disgraceful that nothing has changed" in cycling after 19-year-old Fin Tarling died on 14 August during the Volta a Portugal following a high-speed collision with a van that had strayed onto the closed road; Tarling's funeral took place in Aberystwyth on Thursday and Brennan made his comments while watching the service and speaking to BBC Sport.

Brennan, 21, races for Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike and has won five stages at the recent three-week Vuelta a Espana as well as the one-day classic Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this year. He told BBC Sport: "It was very sad what happened with Fin. We were watching his funeral yesterday and I said to my friend: 'It's so sad we've lost someone so special and also nothing has changed.'" Six riders have died during road races in the past three years, and American rider Ezra Caudell is currently in hospital, external with "multi-system trauma" following a crash at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic. Earlier this month the UCI proposed the introduction of GPS trackers at all races to pinpoint riders' locations at all times, and BBC Sport has contacted the UCI for comment.

Brennan criticised the lack of visible change in race safety and said: "I really think that is disgraceful. Instead of someone somewhere in these organisations saying: 'OK, this should never ever happen again', it feels the world has moved on, nothing has changed and there's events where cars have been on the course still." He added: "It's unbelievable, because you've lost a friend and when nothing changes it is really shocking."

Pressing for action, Brennan said: "I think these big organisations and [sport's world governing body] the UCI should have a look at what they need to do to increase the safety." He argued for outside oversight of safety standards, saying an independent mechanism would be needed to enforce stricter rules across events.

The sport's largest races typically operate under extensive safety regimes: organisers often implement total road closures on stages for much of the day, a factor cited in the sport's generally good safety record at those events. By contrast, smaller races such as the Volta a Portugal and the Tour of Britain use "rolling roadblocks", where police and officials travel in front of and behind the peloton. The article notes that races such as the third-tier Volta a Portugal sell their broadcast rights at a lower fee than bigger races and consequently use more cost-effective measures to manage road closures.

Brennan also raised scheduling and commercial pressures when discussing race conditions, stating: "We have big outside factors such as TV ... I would say that's a massive one. The instances of racing in Spain, and instead of moving it forward to racing at 09:00 we're racing at 15:00 in the midday heat." He called again for independent oversight, saying: "I think a real independent organisation that can really say to the teams whether something is safe, or whether something needs to be changed would benefit the sport and hopefully would stop these sad tragic events that happened at World Championships [referring to Muriel Furrer in 2024] and what happened with Fin and all the other sad events that happen in the sport."

The UCI has been contacted by BBC Sport for comment; the governing body's recent proposal to require GPS trackers at all races to pinpoint riders' locations is the concrete measure currently reported as under consideration.