Richard Plugge, the manager of the former Tour de France winner, Jonas Vingegaard, has criticised cycling\u2019s governing body, the UCI, for a lack of action following the death of Fin Tarling 10 days ago and said that cycling\u2019s leading teams should take responsibility for ensuring safety in races.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither UCI president David Lappartient, nor anyone else, stands up and says: \u2018Wait a minute, we really need to think about how we are going to prevent this from happening in the future,\u2019\u201d said Plugge, manager of the Visma Lease a bike team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we as teams need to take responsibility for safety in races ourselves again. The lack of anger about what has happened is very disappointing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tarling was killed during the Volta a Portugal when he was descending mid-race in pursuit of the peloton and collided with a non-race vehicle coming towards him on the race route, despite the road closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis boy encounters a car on a descent,\u201d Plugge said of Tarling. \u201cCan you imagine this happening during Formula One? That a car is suddenly driving on the track in the opposite direction? This actually does happen in a cycling race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are just carrying on,\u201d Plugge told Wielerflits of the sport\u2019s reaction. \u201cWhat disappoints me is that everyone says it is terrible, but then immediately a \u2018but\u2019 follows. We need to skip everything after the \u2018but\u2019. This simply cannot happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of the EF Education Easy Post team, has also called for a reduction in the number of races on the professional racing calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is lack of standards and oversight and the need to keep too many races that do not meet professional standards on the calendar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many races that are too underfunded to provide safe road closures. We don\u2019t need 600 days of racing. Other sports do now want to spread themselves so thin. How about consolidating resources and having 100 days or racing all of which are safe?\u201d<\/p>\n