The Tour de Suisse peloton paid tribute to the late Gino Mäder by riding together along the final 20km of the route of stage 6, which was cancelled following the announcement of the Swiss rider’s death on Friday morning
Word had filtered through to the peloton just as it was assembling in Chur for the planned start of the stage. Even before that tragic confirmation had reached them, his fellow riders had understandably little appetite for a bike race as they waited for news of their fallen comrade.
Romain Bardet spoke for many during that anxious vigil. “We’ve had no news since last night. Nobody is really thinking about the race anymore,” the Frenchman said after he had signed on.
A few minutes later, Bahrain Victorious announced that Mäder had succumbed to the injuries sustained in his crash on the descent of the Albulapass on stage 5. The Tour de Suisse organisation immediately postponed the start of the stage until further notice, then confirmed its cancellation shortly afterwards and formed a memorial procession for the final 20km.
The stage had initially been slated to start from La Punt and climb the Albulapass, bringing the peloton past the very point where Mäder, as well as Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) had crashed on Thursday afternoon. A rock avalanche in the area, however, had seen the organisation compelled to shorten the stage early on Friday morning, with the start instead moved to Chur.
There was an additional layer of poignancy to that amendment to the stage, given that the rockfall was caused by thawing permafrost, an issue to which Mäder had repeatedly drawn attention by using platform as a professional rider. Just last year, he donated 1 Swiss Franc towards the fight against climate change for every rider who finished behind him in a race over the course of the 2022 season.
“Being a kid I had the chance, the luck to see glaciers: ‘The face of the Alps’, ‘Eternal ice’,” Mäder wrote then. “Nothing eternal about them as the glaciers of the world lose around 300 billion tons of ice every year. I hope future generations can experience glaciers too.”
Following consultation with Mäder’s family, Tour de Suisse race director Olivier Senn announced that the peloton would pay tribute to their late colleague by riding together along the final 20km of the stage 6 route from the shore of the Türlersee to the finish line in Oberwil-Lieli. Before the riders boarded their team buses to travel onwards to the start of…
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