Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto among teams kicked out of the race.
Niamh Fisher-Black, a favourite for the race overall, was one of the riders disqualified along with her whole team.
Cor Vos
Five teams — Lidl-Trek, PicNic PostNL, Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Visma-Lease a Bike, and EF Education-Oatly — have been disqualified from the Tour de Romandie prior to the opening stage on Friday. The disagreement that led to their disqualification involved the UCI’s new regulations regarding tracking devices, which were set to be tested at the three-day Women’s WorldTour event. Initially, AG Insurance-Soudal was also set to be disqualified; however, the Belgian team will be allowed to start the race.
The teams in question have stated they would comply with the UCI’s use of GPS trackers, but there was contention around how the devices would be attached to the bikes and what the data would be used for.
Underlying the disagreement in Romandie, and its somewhat extreme consequences, is a longstanding battle between the UCI and professional teams over who owns rider data, and by proxy, who could potentially monetize or otherwise benefit from that data. The dispute is in many ways similar to those over image rights in other sports, pitting two groups against each other that both lay claim to a potentially lucrative or at least informative asset: the detailed metrics generated by riders.
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