The UCI and the native organising committee on the Highway World Championships in Zurich have mentioned they’re unable to offer any data on the circumstances of Muriel Furrer’s deadly crash on the junior ladies’s highway race because of an ongoing police investigation.
Furrer was airlifted by helicopter to Zurich College Hospital after sustaining a critical head harm in a crash throughout Thursday’s race. The Swiss rider, who raced at worldwide stage in highway, cyclocross and mountain bike, died on Friday on the age of 18.
In a brief press convention in Zurich’s Kongresshaus on Friday afternoon, UCI sport supervisor Peter Van den Abeele and Olivier Senn of the organising committee confirmed that the remaining World Championships races would go forward this weekend on the request of the Furrer household.
Van den Abeele and Senn had been unwilling to reply questions on the circumstances of Furrer’s crash and the timeliness with which she had acquired remedy for her accidents.
Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung has reported that Swiss Air-Rescue (REGA) had confirmed that its first helicopter mission within the Zurich space on Thursday had departed at 12:52 pm, greater than an hour after the end of the junior ladies’s highway race.
“As Peter acknowledged, there’s an investigation happening by the general public prosecutor and the police. We’ve no safe data in the intervening time, and due to this fact we will not touch upon this,” Senn mentioned.
“There is no such thing as a safe data, and which means all the things that’s out there’s hearsay. I wish to ask you to additionally respect the household. Please use wherever doable info and never rumours.”
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Studies in Swiss media have recommended the crash occurred within the forestry above Küsnacht on the World Championships ending circuit, although the UCI and the organising committee had been unable to verify the exact location.
“Not but,” mentioned Senn, who added that extra security checks had taken place on that part of the course forward of Friday’s under-23 males’s highway race.
“We’ve clearly seemed on the scenario which occurred there yesterday. We’ve barely amended the employees on-site, particularly as a result of within the afternoon when it began raining once more, not realizing if that had any affect on the accident.
“As all the time, we imagine we do all the time the utmost on the protection and safety of the riders. The downhill was checked out once more simply right now with the rain on web site.”
Requested if the timing chip in Furrer’s bike had been used to find her after the crash, Van den Abeele mentioned, “The investigation remains to be happening, however certainly the examination of the trackers will probably be utilized by the authorities.”
The under-23 males’s highway race was already underway when Furrer’s demise was introduced on Friday afternoon. The rostrum ceremony afterwards came about with out music or the enjoying of the nationwide anthem, and Saturday’s UCI Gala has been cancelled, however Van den Abeele confirmed that the rest of the racing programme, together with the elite highway races, would go forward this weekend.
“The UCI is respecting the needs of the household by persevering with to carry the World Championships,” he mentioned.
Furrer’s demise is the second such tragedy in Swiss biking in a little bit over a 12 months, following Gino Mäder’s deadly crash on the 2023 Tour de Suisse. Senn is the director of the Tour de Suisse in addition to the deputy common supervisor of the Zurich 2024 organising committee.
“Clearly, it is one other tragic demise. It has a variety of similarities and comparable emotions,” Senn mentioned. “However right now is just not about Gino. Right now is about Muriel, and my ideas are along with her household.”
