Riders hold up Il Lombardia for five minutes to protest against vehicles on race routes
Remco Evenepoel spoke for the peloton in Bergamo after a delivery van and a police motorbike entered Italian race courses in the same week, two months after Finlay Tarling was killed at the Volta a Portugal.
The peloton refused to start Il Lombardia for five minutes on 10 October, staging a protest on the start line in Bergamo over vehicles getting onto race routes.
When the countdown to the start ended, the riders stayed where they were. After about two minutes, European champion Remco Evenepoel took a microphone from the race organisers and explained to the crowd what was happening. World champion Brandon McNulty and the national champions stood with him in the front row.
“Unfortunately, we lost the life of a brother and of a colleague of us,” Evenepoel said, according to Velo and Domestique. “We want to make this statement to just show to the whole world that we cannot keep accepting the fact that guys are getting injured and are literally dying while doing what we like the most.”
The race then started normally. Paul Seixas went on to win it.
A week of incidents in Italy
The protest followed two incidents in the space of two days in Italian one-day races.
At the Coppa Bernocchi on 5 October, a DHL delivery van pulled onto the route from a side street and drove behind the breakaway before stopping, Velo and Domestique reported. The next day, at Tre Valli Varesine, Pinarello-Q36.5 riders Thomas Gloag and Marcel Camprubí crashed after colliding with a police motorbike that was reportedly travelling against the direction of the race. Velo reported that Gloag abandoned and needed stitches to his knee.
Behind both lies the death of Finlay Tarling. The 19-year-old Welsh rider, of the NSN Development Team and the younger brother of Netcompany Ineos rider Josh Tarling, died on 14 August after a crash on stage 8 of the Volta a Portugal. According to Portuguese broadcaster RTP, cited by Domestique, he was struck by a motorist who had entered the route and was driving against the direction of the race.
Evenepoel also addressed future race organisers directly, asking them to “please make sure that we can race safely” and “without being worried about cars, motorbikes, all that stuff coming into the course.”
What the riders asked for
A joint statement was posted by Tom Pidcock and other riders, and shared by Adam Hansen, president of the riders’ association, the CPA. Domestique reported that the protest was the riders’ own idea rather than something organised by the CPA.
“As riders, we stand united against the unnecessary risk our lives are being subjected to,” it began. Its central demand was “a serious, open conversation between riders, race organisers and the UCI resulting in concrete changes to how race routes are secured and managed.”
The statement ended: “However most importantly we want to come home safe to our loved ones.”
Michael Tarling, Finlay’s father, wrote on X that the family was “so thankful, moved and proud” of the riders, Velo reported. “Things need to change and no other family should ever receive the phone call we received on 14th Aug,” he wrote.
The organiser and the UCI
RCS Sport, which organises Il Lombardia but not the earlier races where the incidents happened, said in a statement that it “fully supports this appeal”.
Luca Guercilena, the new head of RCS Sport’s cycling division, told Cyclingnews that riders told him about the plan “25 to 30 minutes before the start”. “We can all agree on the content of the action, it was very fair,” he said. His only reservation was that, with more notice, the organisers would have given the riders a stage rather than “a straightforward microphone”.
Velo reported no immediate response from the UCI, and we found no public UCI statement on the protest by 14 October.
The governing body has, however, put safety at the top of its plans to reform the sport. In a consultation summary published in September, the UCI said that cutting the number of vehicles in races, “especially motorbikes”, had broad support from contributors. It said it would review the race convoy, with “fewer motorbikes and cars (for example a photo pool for press motorbikes and greater use of drones)”. UCI president David Lappartient said in a press release that safety “is not negotiable, and it will move forward at an even faster pace than the other parts of the reform”.
