{"id":619685,"date":"2026-04-20T18:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619685\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:19:11","slug":"i-get-the-impression-that-the-changes-made-havent-actually-made-the-sport-safer-tom-pidcock-talks-safety-in-cycling-upon-return-from-catalunya-ravine-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/619685\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I get the impression that the changes made haven\u2019t actually made the sport safer’ \u2013 Tom Pidcock talks safety in cycling upon return from Catalunya ravine fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this week’s Tour of the Alps, Tom Pidcock<\/a> makes his return to racing following a serious crash at the Volta a Catalunya. The Briton will miss La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, where he finished third last year, but he’s still on course to challenge at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Tuttobiciweb<\/a> and other media ahead of the Tour of the Alps, which runs for five days from Monday to Friday, Pidcock spoke about safety issues in cycling.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pidcock suffered knee ligament damage in his crash in Catalunya, which saw him fall down a ravine at 60kph<\/a>, with poorly positioned road signs among the contributing factors. Thankfully, he didn’t lose consciousness and was able to alert his team car via his radio.<\/p>\n

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A rider losing consciousness in a crash \u2013 like Muriel Furrer at the 2024 World Championships \u2013 wouldn’t be able to do so, a major factor in the UCI’s push to implement GPS in the peloton<\/a> to track crashed riders.<\/p>\n

“Safety is always a sensitive issue. I get the impression that the changes made haven\u2019t actually made the sport safer, but were implemented without any real justification,” Pidcock said.<\/p>\n

“The key, in my view, is technology. If there were no radios… I can understand the reasons for wanting to get rid of them, but from a safety perspective, they are essential.”<\/p>\n

He’ll return for the start of the Tour of the Alps<\/a> in Innsbruck on Monday, not having changed his outlook on racing as a result of his crash. He called the fall a result of “a series of unfortunate circumstances”, rather than an outcome to live in fear day after day.<\/p>\n

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“I don\u2019t think that crash will affect me or worry me ahead of the upcoming races. A series of unfortunate circumstances came together, and that\u2019s why I fell; fortunately, it\u2019s unlikely that they\u2019ll all happen every day,” he said.<\/p>\n

Pidcock said that his Pinarello-Q36.5 team had wanted him to race Fl\u00e8che, held on Wednesday, but Pidcock said he doesn’t yet feel at 100% fitness and form he’d need to challenge on the Mur de Huy.<\/p>\n

“My condition is good; the team actually wanted me to do La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, but there you really have to be 100%, you can\u2019t hide, and I preferred to come here to do longer climbs, which are what I need to improve. After that, we\u2019ll head to Li\u00e8ge\u2013Bastogne\u2013Li\u00e8ge<\/a> and see how it goes,” Pidcock said.<\/p>\n

“I still don\u2019t know how I\u2019m feeling, but [stage 1] is already quite an explosive stage, so I\u2019ll quickly get a sense of what my ambitions might be this week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this week’s Tour of the Alps, Tom Pidcock makes his return to racing following a serious crash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-619685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}