The names ‘Gino’ and ‘Muriel’ were painted on the tarmac in Zurich last weekend. As the men’s and women’s elite races flew around the technical city-centre circuit, these markings on the road served as a desperately sad, harrowing reminder of the tragedies that have struck Swiss Cycling and the entire cycling community in the last two years. Two young lives ended too soon.
In the end, Lotte Kopecky and Tadej Pogačar were crowned the elite world champions, but really, the bike racing felt secondary. Eighteen-year-old Muriel Furrer’s death after her crash in the junior women’s race cast a dark shadow. The loss was announced during the under-23 men’s event on Friday with competitors informed after the race just before the podium ceremonies. Medals were given, but national anthems were not played and flags were flown at half mast. Mourning took the place of celebration.
Although the competition continued through the rest of the week, as Elisa Longo-Borghini stated after finishing third in the women’s race: “There was not a rider racing today who was not thinking of Muriel.”
Image: Chris Auld/SWpix.com
Furrer was remembered everywhere in Switzerland last weekend. A minute of silence observed at the start of both elite races saw the Swiss women’s team huddled at the front of the peloton in the rain, tears shed for their team-mate. “We can’t talk about results, it’s just about going out and showing we are racing for Muriel and I think the result will be secondary today,” Noemi Rüegg choked to reporters. The following day, the entirety of the men’s peloton removed their helmets at the start of their race in Winterthur, grieving the loss of a young woman who died doing what she loved.
Furrer’s fatal crash is perhaps made even harder to process for many due to the questions that surround the incident. Questions about if more could have been done to save her, questions about how there is even the shocking possibility that she wasn’t found for such a long time, in a race that was broadcast on television to millions of people, on a circuit in a busy city.
These were questions that UCI President David Lappartient was unable to answer when he spoke to the press on Saturday. “You don’t ride a bike to die,” the Frenchman stated to a silent room full of journalists.
“We don’t know exactly what happened, that’s the job of the police, they are working on it, to figure out the conditions of how the accident happened. I…