Tour de Romandie
Eklat about GPS chips: Cycling association suspends five teams
It’s about security. An argument about a system for location for the drivers causes a stir before the start of the women’s Romandie Tour.
The Tour de Romandie feminine overshadowed an argument between the UCI cycling association and several WorldTour racing stables. Because they refused to participate in a planned test run for GPS chips, the UCI denied the drivers of five teams when Huémoz’s opening mountain time trial from Huémoz after Huémoz’s opening and disqualified them.
Among them with Canyon-Sram and the Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma, 2024, the Tour de Frances Femmes’ Tour de Frances, also one of the favorites for the overall victory. 30 of the 93 reported drivers will not start.
The background to the disqualification is a new GPS safety tracking system, which is supposed to make it easier to location the drivers. The technology is also to be used at the road world championship in September in Rwanda. The World Association tests the system for the first time on the tour in western Switzerland. A driver receives a GPS tracker with a 63 gram chip per team.
“The decision of those responsible for these teams to oppose the specific rules of the event surprises and endangers the efforts to ensure security in cycling by developing this new technology,” the UCI wrote in a message. The World Association also pointed out that “most of the teams concerned” were part of an organization that develops their own GPS tracking system.
In a common statement, the teams defended themselves against disqualification and criticize the World Association. At the beginning of the week they would have informed the UCI their concerns and showed the will for cooperation.
The decision to disqualify the five teams is “shocking” and disregarded the rights of the teams and drivers, among other things. The teams are always trying to make cycling safer. But that must be achieved “through cooperation and not by compulsion”. Among other things, the race stables criticized that the system should only be tested on one driver per team and emphasized that there was already another functioning system for the complete peloton.
dpa
Source: Stern
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