{"id":486341,"date":"2026-03-20T19:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/486341\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T19:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:16:18","slug":"uci-will-mandate-use-of-gps-tracking-in-road-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/486341\/","title":{"rendered":"UCI will mandate use of GPS tracking in road races"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Kramon_220720_TdF22_st17_MS_16566.jpg\" alt=\"UCI will mandate use of GPS tracking in road races\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <a class=\"article__category\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__sub-title\">The sport&#8217;s governing body has yet to pick a system or set a timeline, but is firm that the technology will be deployed &#8220;across event classes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                                <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chris Marshall-Bell\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"author__photo lazy \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/CMB-mug-shot-aspect-ratio-99-99-150x150.jpeg\" width=\"99\" height=\"99\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kristof Ramon, courtesy Velon<\/p>\n<p>In a private letter sent last Friday from the UCI\u2019s president David Lappartient to the respective unions for pro riders, teams and organisers and seen by Escape Collective, the head of the sport\u2019s governing body said that \u201cthe risk of a rider going off course unseen \u2026 [is] a fundamental danger to the safety of our riders.\u201d GPS trackers, he said, are \u201ca necessary improvement to safety in professional road cycling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eighteen months ago, at the Zurich World Championships, the Swiss cyclist Muriel Furrer died of a serious head injury in the junior women\u2019s road race at the age of 18. She crashed on a descent and laid unnoticed among trees for over an hour before she was located.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ever since then there have been calls to make GPS rider tracking obligatory. In the letter, Lappartient wrote that the topic was discussed at December\u2019s WorldTour seminar, where he stated that GPS tracking \u201cwill need to become mandatory and phased in across event classes.\u201d It&#8217;s unknown which races that will involve at first and whether the phase-in would be rolled out equally on the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s WorldTour circuits, or just one to start.<\/p>\n<p>Escape asked the UCI by what date it wishes to make trackers obligatory, but it did not respond before publication. Escape spoke to four other sources regarding this matter, and neither did they have a clear idea of when the new ruling would be implemented. But Lappartient\u2019s letter called on each union to respond by the end of April so that the matter can be discussed at the next meeting of the Professional Cycling Council on May 21.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"kg-bookmark-container\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/cyclingspy-can-equipment-changes-really-make-cycling-safer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>CyclingSpy: Can equipment changes really make cycling safer?<\/p>\n<p>Can new UCI gear rules make racing safer without compromising fairness? A look at how equipment tweaks might help, while bigger safety issues remain unaddressed.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/safety-handlebars-uci-039.jpg\" alt=\"\" onerror=\"this.style.display = 'none'\"\/><\/a>GPS ETA is TBD<\/p>\n<p>What system \u2013 or systems \u2013 will be used will form the basis for future conversations. The UCI trialled its own Swiss Timing-developed system at last year\u2019s Rwanda World Championships, while Velon, an organisation owned by nine teams, developed its own system named SAVE in 2025. It has been deployed in a lot more races, including most recently at Tirreno-Adriatico. Both systems rely on mobile phone networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                This post is for paying subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#FF6F42\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n<p class=\"reactions\" data-post-id=\"69bc3a0cb673e53b592e6acc\">\n                    \ud83d\udc4dYep<br \/>\n                    \ud83d\udc4eNope\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" title=\"News &amp; Racing\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f293b3 news-and-racing\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/uci\/\" title=\"UCI\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f295e4 uci\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UCI<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/rider-safety\/\" title=\"Rider Safety\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f2947f rider-safety\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rider Safety<\/a>\n                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News &amp; Racing The sport&#8217;s governing body has yet to pick a system or set a timeline, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-486341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}