UCI defends Olympic road race course; van Vleuten says she'll "be fine"

Comparing it to motor racing is madness, the majority of the improvements have been to the cars not the circuits, and it wasn't so long ago an F1 driver was pretty much decapitated by a crane. Furthermore, most tracks are built, Monaco being an exception though that's pretty much an exception to any rule (who knows the cost of the crash barriers for that street circuit).

Suggestions of padding up every tree, rock face, lampost are frankly ludicrous, the TDF covered >3,000km! What's that, just the dangerous ones? If you get anything slightly wrong at 50mph on a bike there is a risk...

I've been thinking about this, and there are aspects of this (and aspects of certain comments I've read) that remind me of motor racing from a few decades ago.

Formula 1 in the 70s for example - there too it was a case of 'well don't crash' or 'slow down' or 'what's the matter, you wuss' if a driver said he thought a particular cuircuit or corner was dangerous. Look how things have changed there - drivers still crash but they tend to walk away from an incident with nothing more than the odd bruise (some might say the changes are for the worst as far as the racing is concerned, but I don't think that has anything to do with the improved safety).

I think that cycle race organisers, and certain people on this forum, need to take a hard look at themselves, and the race routes, and realise that there will be crashes, so it's important to ensure the consequences of those craches are rather less severe than what we saw at the weekend by taking sensible steps to pad up badly positioned immoveable objects, and by keeping motos and support vehicles at a decent distance.

Logically this course would have been safer had this particular section been ridden in the opposite direction. This then would mean that the down hill bit would have been on the comparatively wide and less dangerous road where there was no deep gutter ( or should that read ditch ) !

Really glad she's ok.

It sounds like the medalists are very lucky they didn't have to race some of the people here on road.cc. 

I guess no one at the UCI or anyone in pro cycling (men's or women's) saw the movie Concussion and the scandal of how the NFL swept player injuries under the rug.  The NFL got the players to believe the injuries were just part of the sport.  Just like the NFL did, the sport of cycling also takes advatage of the riders willingness to sacrifice themselves to be part of it all.  Ownership and management in cycling still believe this too.  

I'm sorry, no one is "all right" after a major concussion - let alone fractured vertebra.  The fact the poor girl said she is alright is proof positive she is not.  I love cycling and bike racing, but this old fashioned thinking abiout the risks and the dangers has to be put behind us.  How hard is it to place a few crash cushions - or at least hay bales at bad curves.  Really!?  The day will come where the trajedy of this kind of thinking will be more broadly understood.  

So Annemiek was more upset about the loss than the fall. Figured, she's a tough woman.

I've never found an opinion held near-unanimously here so ridiculously silly.

The problem seems to be the rain-gutters, then. The UCI should ban all races with those kind of descent, basically every race in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and if I recall correctly bits of Southeastern Europe. The IOC should demand that the broke state of Rio spend more money in order to make the race more familiar for northern European rider, in pursuit of its motto "making a better world for northwestern Europeans through sport".

I'm not usually the “whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect)."-type. But I do think a lot of people really are protesting at the unfamiliar because it is unfamiliar not because it is actually any more dangerous. If this race is too unsafe then, for starters, Paris-Roubaix should never be raced again.

As far as I know,  over the two races, six riders crashed on the descent.  How many negotiated it safely?  What is the difference  (apart from the numbers) between the two groups? 

It was also a dark descent (foliage) cover in a way that alpine descents are not and this would have had an effect of visibility for the riders, probably contributing to the falls. The fact that no one had bothered to repair the netting Ritchie Porte crashed into didn't reflect too well.
I am very glad Van Vleuten is expected to make a full recovery but with a touch more speed, the injuries could have been way worse.
The adverse camber, visibility, guttering and lack of protection from solid objects on slide out points on bends leads me to side with Boardman. If a risk is readily identifiable then why not mitigate it ? To not do so is negligence. Even if the risks weren't identified in the run up to the games, they were known after the men's race.

From a riders's perspective, it looks like she took a worng line into the corner at that speed (or at any speed for that matter). She should have entered the corner from the far left side of the street (with the appropriate braking up to that point) and then should have shaved the apex (where she crashed) with no braking. Elementary handling skils but, hey, even the experienced err. That said, the kerb on the side of the road looks lethal.

After that winter olympics a few years ago when the luge guy was killed when he hit a bare metal beam, I'd have thought they'd have learned lessons about what things are aound competitors when they make a mistake taking the inevitable risks. But I guess not.

Racing is racing - why did/has motor racing continued to improve safety - look at Jim Clark's  fatal accident and you will see a situation not too dissimilar to the state of safety in cycling now a total disregrd for the participants saftey. Except we are talking the 60's not the 21st century - we are supposed ot have a higher regard for life these days.

So pleased it was not a fatal accident but it should not need one for the UCI to get real and take safety seriously.

How easy would it have been to get the gutter filled, the kerbs removed from the corners and some form of crash protection put in place?

How easy to put in proper crash protection where relevant at all major races? 

The UCI appears to have been derelict in its duty of care and I for one hope someone gets around to prosecuting them before there is a death.

yes we will still see injuries but when will we see some attempt to stop unneccsesary deaths and injuries?

Hope all those hurt in the crashes recover fully and quickly

People can talk about brakes, riders riding safely, etc, all they want.  This is a race and people are going to push the boundaries.  Therefore, the organiser should implement safety measures to ensure that if a crash happens, the risk to competitors is minimised.  That usually takes the form of crash barriers, which are very simple and cheap to implement.

That there are no crash barriers on such an obviously dangerous section of road suggests to me that the organiser has been negligent, perhaps criminally.

Will always consider her the winner anyway, she had it in the bag.

There's one comment above that's too simplistic. The issue is the low gutters at the side of this road, and the high concrete kerbs. Do those features mean that the consequences of a fall are so severe that the course is dangerous?

It's fair enough to have a debate about that, and different opinions, but you do have to look at the facts sensibly, for it to be worth posting a view.

Seriously, i'm in with a shot at Gold, i'm brave, talented and am going to take a risk.   The course must be designed to cater for this mentality, not hospitalise the risk takers.

Sure the UCI would say that.  Who's on the hook for a broken back, 2 broken collar bones, and a pelvis for top sportsmen?  Surely better to be "hands up" on this when you have riders on your event in intensive care.  

It was a narrow road with horrible gutters, damp, windy, leafy, and fast with no run off.   This was not a descent similar to the conditions of the recent TDF Col de Joux Plane.

Yup, glad she'll be OK - that was a shocker to watch.

Now then, let's set the groundrules for discussion on this topic:

1. The UCI/Olympic Committee were/are/weren't/are not negligent for ignoring the potential consequence/inevitable outcome/remote possibility of an error/mechanical failure etc

2. It is entirely practical/physically impossible/economically unfeasible/eminently affordable to mitigate the outcome of any error/failure by the placement of haybales/netting/paving over/line of Mr Blobbys along the corner apex/run-out

3. Pro cyclists should know better/should never be exposed to such risks/have brakes on their bikes/have a right to a safe workplace

4. There are hundreds of corners in any alpine GT stage on which the consequence of error is not a few broken vertibrae, it's certain death as you flip over a thigh-high barrier at 70kph+ and plummet 1000 feet onto sun-drenched/icy-slick/Marmot-poo-covered rocks. But no-one's expecting the world's wealthiest nations to barrier every exposed alpine corner. Or maybe they should. No injury or death is acceptable, ever. But that's racing. It's only a bike race. Workplaces should be safe. Safe racing is boring racing. 

5. Disc brakes.

6. Rinse and repeat.

7. I don't have any views either way.

Firstly, very glad that she is going to be ok, it was a shocking looking crash.

Re the course, all the bikes have brakes don't they?