\u201cThe decision of these teams to oppose the specific rules for the event is surprising, and undermines the cycling family\u2019s efforts to ensure the safety of all riders in road cycling by developing this new technology,\u201d the UCI, cycling\u2019s governing body, said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is deplorable to witness the refusal of certain teams to move forward together to protect the safety of riders, and the UCI condemns their non-cooperation,\u201d the UCI said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The measure is part of the UCI\u2019s SafeR initiative, which aims to enhance rider safety in professional road cycling, and follows the death of 18-year-old Muriel Ferrer following a crash in a junior race last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The teams that refused to use the tracking devices and were therefore disqualified are:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canyon\/\/Sram zondacrypto
\nEF Education \u2013 Oatly
\nLidl \u2013Trek
\nTeam Picnic PostNL
\nTeam Visma \u2013 Lease a Bike<\/p>\n
A statement published by EF Education \u2013 Oatly said: \u201cWe are shocked and disappointed by the UCI\u2019s decision to disqualify several teams, including ours, from the Tour de Romandie F\u00e9minin.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarlier this week, all affected teams sent formal letters to the UCI expressing support for rider safety but raising serious concerns about the unilateral imposition of a GPS tracking device to just one of the riders per team.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"EF](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2211922246.jpg\")
EF Education – Oatly said \u201cWe are shocked and disappointed by the UCI\u2019s decision\u201d. Pim Waslander \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
The team said that they made clear to the UCI that they would \u201cnot select a rider ourselves, nor install, remove or maintain the device.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UCI or its partner was free to select a rider and install the device at their own liability if they believe they are in their right to do so,\u201d they added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They added that the UCI chose to impose this measure \u201cwithout clear consent\u201d, and that it is unclear why the UCI did not want to nominate riders to trial the GPS trackers.<\/p>\n
\u201c[T]he UCI commissaires were unable to demonstrate on the basis of which precise UCI rule teams are obligated to discriminate one rider against other riders in terms of obligations (except for officially referring to an email of the teams\u2019s union) but have nevertheless decided to carry on and disqualify the teams with their riders,\u201d the statement continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis action disregards the rights of teams and riders, applies the measure in a discriminatory manner, and contradicts the UCI\u2019s own stated commitment to dialogue with stakeholders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A total of 29 riders have been disqualified with only 63 riders finishing today\u2019s stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie F\u00e9minin.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UCI has disqualified five teams from the Tour de Romandie F\u00e9minin after their refusal to use GPS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-69016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69016","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=69016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}