Cycling chiefs criticised over safety after Fin Tarling killed in Volta a Portugal

Richard Plugge has criticised the UCI’s response to the death of Fin Tarling, who died 10 days ago during the Volta a Portugal, and said teams may need to take responsibility for race safety.

Plugge, manager of the Visma Lease a bike team and of former Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard, spoke after Tarling was killed while descending mid-race as he chased the peloton, colliding with a non-race vehicle that was coming towards him on the race route despite the road closure.

“Neither UCI president David Lappartient, nor anyone else, stands up and says: ‘Wait a minute, we really need to think about how we are going to prevent this from happening in the future,’” Plugge said, and added: “Maybe we as teams need to take responsibility for safety in races ourselves again. The lack of anger about what has happened is very disappointing to me.”

Plugge described the circumstances of the collision and criticised the lack of a stronger reaction from the sport’s authorities: “This boy encounters a car on a descent,” he said. “Can you imagine this happening during Formula One? That a car is suddenly driving on the track in the opposite direction? This actually does happen in a cycling race.”

“We are just carrying on,” Plugge told Wielerflits. “What disappoints me is that everyone says it is terrible, but then immediately a ‘but’ follows. We need to skip everything after the ‘but’. This simply cannot happen.”

Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the EF Education Easy Post team, called for a reduction in the number of professional races on the calendar, saying: “The problem is lack of standards and oversight and the need to keep too many races that do not meet professional standards on the calendar. There are many races that are too underfunded to provide safe road closures. We don’t need 600 days of racing. Other sports do now want to spread themselves so thin. How about consolidating resources and having 100 days or racing all of which are safe?”

Formal investigations into the circumstances are under way, and media statements from the Portuguese police (GNR) that Tarling had been isolated and racing without a police escort have not elicited further public comment from the sport’s authorities. “There are currently formal investigations under way into the circumstances of the accident, both by the GNR and by the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office,” the Portugese Cycling Federation (FPC) said. “As the organiser of the Volta a Portugal, we believe it would be neither appropriate nor responsible for us to speculate on matters that are currently being investigated by the competent authorities.” The UCI said: “As the circumstances surrounding the incident are still being established, we will not be commenting further at this stage.”

Unlike Europe’s three Grand Tours, in France, Italy and Spain, the Portuguese race uses a rolling road closure that depends on policing at the front and back of the convoy, a system that has been questioned after other recent near-misses. The Australian rider Maeve Plouffe said she had nearly been hit by a car while racing in the Tour of Britain Women last week, and Adam Hansen, Association of Professional Cyclists president and former professional, said: “There is a hole in the system of rolling road closures.” Hansen added: “The most dangerous moments I had in a race did not result in a major incident. It was pure luck that I did not die sometimes. The organisers just think if nothing happened, it was fine.”

Plugge said the pattern of failures to prioritise rider safety meant structural changes to some races were unavoidable. “If cycling from A to B on public roads over 200 kilometres is no longer feasible, then we must ride laps of 15, 20, or 25 kilometres, provided those routes can be 100% secured. The riders must be certain that they can race on a safe course.”