Tour de Romandie Feminin: Kiwi cyclist Niamh Fisher-Black among riders excluded over GPS dispute

Niamh Fisher-Black's Lidl-Trek team have been excluded from the Tour de Romandie Feminin. Photo / Getty Images

Kiwi cyclist Niamh Fisher-Black is among the cyclists impacted by a mass exclusion of teams before the start of the Tour de Romandie Feminin in Switzerland.

Five teams were excluded from the three-stage race by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) for refusing to comply with the race rules related to the implementation of GPS trackers as a test for a new safety system.

Lidl-Trek, who Fisher-Black competes for, Canyon-Sram zondacrypto, EF Education-Oatly, Team Picnic PostNL and Team Visma-Lease a Bike were the teams affected, with the test being carried out over the course of the Women’s WorldTour event. A total of 30 riders were removed from the competition.

In a statement, UCI said details of the test were communicated in early August, with teams being required to designate one rider on whose bike the GPS tracker weighing 63g would be fixed for the three stages.

UCI said by not nominating a rider, the five teams had opted to be excluded from the race and the body would consider if other measures were warranted.

“The UCI’s priority is to ensure the safety of riders. It works with the entire cycling family towards this goal, and the collaboration with most stakeholders is positive and constructive. It is deplorable to witness the refusal of certain teams to move forward together to protect the safety of riders, and the UCI condemns their non-co-operation.”

The body said the objective of the test was to refine its safety tracking software and establish protocols to provide real-time data to race control, medical teams and UCI commissaires.

The idea was to strengthen the monitoring of rider safety during races and enable rapid response in case of incidents.

The initiative was part of the organisation’s ongoing efforts to protect rider safety, with the technology expected to be implemented for coming seasons.

The five impacted teams released a statement of their own in response to being excluded from the event, and said they had raised concerns about “the unilateral imposition of a GPS tracking device to just one of the riders per team” to the UCI earlier in the week.

The teams said they told the UCI they would not select a rider themselves nor install, remove or maintain the device, and that UCI were “free to select a rider and install the device at their own liability”.

“Despite our co-operation and the existence of a proven and collaborative safety tracking system already tested successfully in other major races (fully operational for the whole peloton and offered to the UCI), the UCI has chosen to impose this measure without clear consent, threaten disqualification, and now exclude us from the race for not selecting a rider ourselves.

“The reason why they don’t want to nominate a rider themselves is still unknown and unanswered.

“Despite multiple requests by the teams over the last two days, the UCI commissaires were unable to demonstrate on the basis of which precise UCI rule teams are obligated to discriminate one rider against other riders in terms of obligations ... but have nevertheless decided to carry on and disqualify the teams with their riders.

“This action disregards the rights of teams and riders, applies the measure in a discriminatory manner, and contradicts the UCI’s own stated commitment to dialogue with stakeholders.”