“I'm more afraid in training than in competition”: professional cyclists face road accidents

Les cyclistes professionnels sont quotidiennement exposés aux dangers de la route à l’entraînement. MAXPPP – POOL ETIENNE GARNIER

"J’ai plus peur à l’entraînement qu’en compétition" : alors que les chutes se multiplient en course, les cyclistes professionnels sont aussi exposés quotidiennement aux dangers de la route à l’entraînement. Avec des conséquences parfois dramatiques.

Two accidents in the space of four days have served as a reminder of how vulnerable the riders are in their preparation, which is largely carried out on open roads, surrounded by cars and trucks.

On Monday, seven members of the German track team were mowed down during a training outing in Palma de Mallorca by an 89-year-old driver who swerved. Six had to be hospitalized, some with fractures, but none were in danger of dying.

Sara Piffer, 19, was not so lucky. The young hopeful of Italian cycling died on Friday after being hit head-on by a car overtaking another vehicle. “We have to stop this massacre. There are too many deaths on our roads”, said Francesco Moser, a legend of the little queen, who lives in the same village, near Trento, as the victim's family. It must be said that Italian cycling has paid a heavy price in recent years, notably with the deaths of two champions, Michele Scarponi in 2017 and Davide Rebellin in 2022, both knocked down by a vehicle.

“I think about it every time I go out”

Elsewhere, professional riders are not immune to tragedy either. 98 cyclists died on the roads of Belgium in 2023 (226 in France), including Tijl De Decker, winner of the Paris-Roubaix espoirs, two days after violently hitting the back of a car.

In December, the double Olympic champion from Paris, Remco Evenepoel, ended up in hospital with multiple fractures after he was unable to avoid a Belgian postal car, whose postwoman had suddenly opened the door.

These examples are something that all the pros have in mind. “I think about them every time I go out. In fact, I am much more afraid of danger in training than in competition”, French veteran Romain Bardet told AFP. “During the race, I feel in control of the risks. During training, however, I am at the mercy of certain driver behaviors and I feel much more vulnerable”, adds the Auvergne climber who says he is “very affected” when he learns of fatal accidents such as that of Paul Varry, a Parisian cyclist crushed by a man in an SUV suspected of having deliberately run over him.

German rider Lennard Kämna had a close call in spring 2024 when he was hit head-on by a car that had veered into the left lane during a training camp in Tenerife. Hospitalised for a month with rib fractures and a pulmonary contusion, he is now trying to revive his career with his new team Lidl-Trek. He doesn't remember anything about the accident, but the first few outings were difficult. “Finding myself in traffic, passing cars was very unpleasant for a few weeks. It passed but I became much more careful”, he says on the Tourfunk podcast of the Sportschau show.

“Under the wheels of the truck”

“We cyclists also have to look at ourselves in the mirror and we are not always perfect. In this case, I was not the culprit and I was still the one who ended up in hospital”.

The young French rider Ewen Costiou is also “more careful” since he “ran into a truck at 50 km/h that slammed on a tight bend” downhill last June. The accident, which he recounts to AFP, is chilling, even if, in the end, the 22-year-old Breton escaped with “only” a head injury and a damaged ankle.

In a daze after the impact, he found himself “right under the wheels of the truck” whose driver had not seen anything and started to back up to let a bus coming in the opposite direction pass. “It was going to run over me. Luckily, there was a cyclist behind me who was shouting at the driver to tell him to stop”, Costiou recalls.

Since then, the Arkéa-B & B Hotels is “more stressed than usual” when a car “honks or brushes past you while overtaking”. “That's why I don't really like riding in a group. Because not everyone understands that you have the right to be two abreast. After that, there are idiots everywhere. There are cyclists who abuse it too. But it's clear that for us the risk is permanent”.