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Following a chaotic, crash-riddled start to the Tour de France, a Canadian cyclist has raised concerns about rider safety.
In a personal blog post shared Tuesday, veteran rider Michael Woods, of Ottawa, scrutinized the Amaury Sport Organisation’s commitment to ensuring the safety of riders.
“No matter what ASO says, they love crashes,” Woods wrote.
“Despite their claimed ‘attempts’ to make the sport safer, one gets a sense — when watching any highlight reel they create — that blood, broken bikes, and some poor bastard walking into an ambulance are what they love to sell.”
Woods, 38, also advocated for riders to wear protective equipment.
“If you dropped anyone outside the pro peloton into this Tour field during any of the first three stages, they would think, ‘Why the hell am I not wearing hockey equipment right now?’
Woods detailed a four-pronged approach that he believes will alleviate the risk of injury to riders: lowering speed, decreasing peloton size, reducing distraction, and rethinking the relegation system.
The Israel-Premier Tech rider suggested organizers can do a better job of mitigating the risks riders must incur if they hope to achieve results in competitions.
“ASO telling riders ‘you need to take less risk’ is like the NBA telling Steph Curry, ‘you need to shoot fewer threes.’ It does nothing,” Woods wrote.
Serious crashes are common in the Tour de France, particularly in the first week.
During the third stage of this year’s installment, star sprinter Jasper Philipsen of Belgium suffered a broken collarbone and at least one rib after a hit, ending his Tour.
The incident followed crashes to Switzerland’s Stefan Bissegger and Italy’s Filippo Ganna on opening stage, which ended each of their races.
Another point of contention for Woods came in his description that one of the heads of ASO — while discussing ways to make the sport safer — laid at least partial blame on riders.
“Paraphrasing — while I was listening to the presentation in French — he said something along the lines of: ‘Riders must also take greater measures to reduce risks, and if they don’t, they may have to be forced to wear protective equipment in the future.'” Woods wrote.
“He said this as if wearing protective equipment would be punitive. To me, this showed a significant misunderstanding of what riders want and how sports, and life in general, work.”
At the conclusion of Stage 5 of the Tour de France on Wednesday, Woods sits 25 minutes, 54 seconds off the lead in 122nd position.
Reigning time trial Olympic and world champion Remco Evenepoel of Belgium will don the leader’s yellow jersey heading into Stage 6 on Thursday.