Around Poland this year acts as an ever so small test pilot for the International Cycling Union (UCI). On Wednesday’s and Thursday’s stages, only two of the riders on each team were allowed to have radio contact with the escort car, while on Friday there will be none. The trial arrangement was started as a possible safety measure, but met with great opposition after a rollover on Wednesday’s stage. – It was chaos today (Wednesday), with no radio. The UCI cannot continue with the ban on radio. This makes the race a complete farce, as we saw in the Olympics where riders could not ask for basic assistance for technical problems. Hopefully no one was hurt too badly today, Plugge wrote on X. POWERFUL BOSS: Richard Plugge is boss of Jumbo-Visma and Jonas Vingegaard. Photo: Daniel Cole / AP A few hours later, the answer came from cycling president David Lappartient. – Hello, Richard. You are new to “fake news”. Today’s upheaval in Poland had nothing to do with the absence of radio and you know that, Lappartient wrote, adding that Plugge wants to keep the radio communication in order to give tactical instructions, not for security reasons. – Unprofessional handling Amund Grøndahl Jansen is one of several Norwegian riders taking part in the race. He reacts to the response of the French UCI president. – I think Lappartient is unprofessional in handling. Throwing out “fake news” without argument seems silly, he wrote in a message to news. In Plugge’s post, he referred to the picture of an overturned by French Nicolas Debaumarché. The Frenchman was part of the offense when he crashed with about five miles to go, a serious roll that even resulted in Debaumarché suffering a fracture in a vertebra. CYCLING PRESIDENT: David Lappartient goes hard against Richard Plugge on X. Photo: Jean-Christophe Bott / AP Sondre Sørtveit, news’s cycling expert, still believes that the cycling team blames the UCI a little too often when things go wrong on the road. – It was an unusually sharp response from the cycling president. But I think the cycling association is probably also a bit tired of the powerful team managers blaming the cycling association as soon as something doesn’t go right, he says and underlines: – I think it will be too easy to just blame the cycling association for a radio ban just because it has be an overturned. It is the responsibility of cyclists to cycle in a safe manner. news has asked the UCI president for a comment on the criticism that appears in this article, but has not received a reply. – Most are negative. Cyclist Carl Fredrik Hagen has been one of those who have run the stages without a radio in recent days in Poland. – To be completely honest, it worked quite well today (Thursday), but it was a very calm stage. It was easy to get to the back of the queue and pick up bottles and the like. And it was easy to communicate with teammates. On Wednesday it was a bit “bob-bob”, but I don’t quite agree that there was more stress in the field, says Hagen, who rides for Q36.5. – How has it been received in the field? – Most are negative. From what I hear, Hagen replies. WITHOUT RADIO: Carl Fredrik Hagen has driven around Poland for several days without a radio in his ear. He thinks it has worked well. Photo: Beate Oma Dahle / NTB Amund Grøndahl Jansen hopes they can continue using radio in the future. He fears that dangerous situations will arise that the riders are not notified about. – It is clearly better to have a radio for safety, both for minor rollovers, but especially in an emergency; should a rider be in a critical condition after a fall, the message can be sent to the medical apparatus in the motorcade much faster, says Jansen. It says three stages of Poland around. Danish superstar Jonas Vingegaard leads the race 19 seconds ahead of Italian Diego Ulissi. Published 16.08.2024, at 14.43 Updated 16.08.2024, at 15.13
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