‘I was wrapped into a thorn field and they couldn’t find me’ – Marlen Reusser recounts her experience of being lost for an hour after a crash, as she advocates for GPS trackers

Dwars door Vlaanderen winner Marlen Reusser (Movistar) voiced her support for the use of GPS trackers in cycling, in light of the death of her compatriot Muriel Furrer at her home World Championships in Zurich two years ago, as well as her own experiences of crashing and being lost.

Earlier this week, an investigation into Furrer’s death found that the 18-year-old was not found for an hour and 22 minutes after crashing out of the junior road race in Zurich in 2024. Races at the World Championships do not have race radios. She was eventually found, but later died of her traumatic injuries.

The investigation concluded that there was no “criminally relevant breach of duty” on the part of the organisers or UCI in contributing to Furrer’s death, but the incident has sparked action on GPS trackers in races.

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Just last week, Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pinarello) crashed into a ravine at the Volta a Catalunya and was only found because he was still able to talk into his radio – otherwise no one knew he was there.

Reusser, who is from Switzerland, is particularly close to the topic, and praised the fact that cycling seems to be moving closer to implementation of tracking technology.

“In Switzerland, the cycling community, the organisers – Tour de Suisse, Tour de Romandie – are very aware of this problem [and] are pushing, as you know. Tour de Suisse is pushing also to have these trackers after we had the case of Muriel and also the case of Gino Mäder,” she said.

“So I think there is a lot of awareness and I am also really happy that this is going forward.”

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Steps are being taken to introduce GPS technology into the sport, but it has not been straightforward, and there is currently no concrete plan for their implementation.

At the Tour de Suisse last year, GPS trackers were used in the men’s and women’s races, intended to be fitted to every rider and race convoy vehicle. However, teams were free to opt out, and it is not entirely clear how many teams used the technology.

At the women’s Tour de Romandie, the UCI attempted to mandate the use for a test, requiring one rider from every team to test a GPS tracking device, but a stand-off with the teams ensued over the details of how the trackers would be fitted, how the one rider would be chosen, and debates over the rights to the data collected. The result was that several teams were disqualified for refusing to comply with the test.

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Trackers were then used for all riders at the World Championships in Rwanda, but are still not widely used in UCI road races. The latest is that UCI president David Lappartient has written to teams to urge collaboration to find an agreed-upon system, but he stated that “If a reasonable and satisfactory solution is not accepted … the UCI will have no option but to enforce effective GPS tracking.”

Whilst the exact form of GPS tracking needs to be ironed out between the UCI and teams, it is clear that many riders think it is a good thing to have. Reusser recounted her own frightening incident of crashing out of sight, which spurred her to think about trackers already some years ago.

“I also had this experience once when I was new in cycling and I crashed out of a corner in a Spanish race and I was wrapped into a thorn field down the hill somehow and they couldn’t find me,” she explained.

“Only because I was still conscious [she could touch her radio], but I was really wrapped up [in thorns], I was on my bike, and suddenly I could hear that my team car turned and was out of the race just to search for me. After I don’t know how long, I suddenly heard them and I could say ‘you’re coming closer, I hear you’ and then after maybe an hour they found me.

“Then I was thinking, if I was not conscious, then how could they ever find me? This was five or six years ago and I was already thinking that’s a problem. Not in races like here [in Belgium], we have a lot of people, you know where people are, it’s open fields, but in stage races in the middle of nowhere, it’s a good thing to have.”

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