Doesn’t matter how wide the road is, as long as a rider is coming from behind a lead wheel there will be the temptation and likelihood of a line deviation to block the faster rider.
I think the point is barrier technology in general. Regardless of circumstance, the barrier should not increase the risk or severity of injuries to riders. In this case it appears that the barriers caused much of Fabios injuries. It stands to reason that a flat banked barrier that remained intact would have kept him in the chute and not caused the terrible injuries we read and hear about. And it that sense it can be compared to WVAs accident last year, when a prong on the barrier caused the damage.
In the current discussion I feel like this needs more attention. DG must be held responsible for his actions, no question there. But for the future I find it a bit disconcerting when the organizers immediately respond with “we are not at fault”. No matter the rules, in such high stakes scenarios the environment should be as safe as possible and account for human error and freak accidents.
Robbie McKewen makes this same argument here.
“What was most disturbing to me was that when Fabio Jakobsen hit the barriers, he didn’t deflect back into the road. He went straight through them. That’s really poor planning, not just from the organisers themselves but the UCI, and they have to take responsibility for that. This is something that has been going on for years. I lobbied for it when I was racing, and I’ve been retired for eight years.
"I put forward a barrier design to both the UCI and the ASO at the same time, for exactly the circumstances like this. While things have improved at some races, a good barrier set-up has to be solid, it can’t come apart, and it’s got to be heavy. The board on the front of the barrier also has to come down at an angle and meet the road. Everything has to deflect the rider back onto the road.
"The barriers in Poland flew every which way, and it looked to me like they were made of plastic.“
That type of crash - someone getting squeezed off the road or into barriers - is inevitable in bike racing (or motor sports or any other sports where use of space is tactical). Its just going to happen now and then.
This was a “run of the mill” sprint crash until the barriers failed. That is where this turned tragic.
Exactly this…not to excuse Groenewegen. He is clearly the cause of the crash and deserves punishment. But, as I noted above, the horrific nature of the crash lays at the feet of the organizers and the UCI.
Years ago, we had barriers with feet that extended into the road. IN hindsight, a completely idiotic design, especially for sprint finishes. The catalyst for change was Cippolini’s spectacular crash in the Giro, where he hit the barriers and his bike went flying into the air (can’t seem to find the video…maybe someone else with better google-fu can find it).
From there we went to the current barriers which don’t have feet extending into the road and slow away from the riders. IMO< these aren’t much better. Yes, it removes the feet, but ti also gives the impression that there is more room available then there is in reality. The top of the barriers are probably almost a foot further in from the bottom. If you are coming over like DG was, you could easily be fooled into thinking there is more room there.
But we know the UCI will not do anything since they have a convenient scapegoat in groenewegen.
Does anyone know the condition of the photographer who was hit by Jakobsen? Looked pretty brutal there as well. I hope he’s okay.
Yes, he is OK…there were a couple posts ^ about it.
Thanks mate 
This where the run off area in races like MotoGP come in. If you get squeezed off the racing line the you can just continue straight off the course without being smashed into a wall. You then are able to safely come back to racing as long as your excursion off the race track did not gain you an advantage.
However, because bike races are held on normal streets there is the issue of the curb. I don’t know what the best solution is but there has to be an option that is better than “here you are fine but move 6 inches to the right and you could get fatally injured by a metal barricade”
Yeah, this course was designed to be a high speed sprint and those barriers clearly weren’t able to handle the speed they were going.
This is the first video of the incident that I’ve seen. Slow mo stuff like this always makes it look more intentional or deliberate than the same video at normal speed. Also,Jakobson was already in an extremely tight gap when that video started. Groenevagen barely moved to the right there and it looked pretty similar to the Sagan/Cav incident where it was a little hard to tell if it was an intentional shutting of the door or just a slight drift/movement while in an all out sprint and then an elbow went out to correct/counterbalance.
the overhead view is the best to see line deviation. DG moves from 2’ from the center line all the way to the right side.
The UCI cannot leave decision making in the hands of sprinters and think “they will do what is right”. There is far too much going on in the heat of a sprint, and people are willing to sacrifice more than one might think in the hopes of a win. They need to be clear on the rules, and even more CLEAR and CONSISTENT on what happens when you break those rules, horrific outcome or not. I’m tired of sports enforcing rules based on the outcome of the event, they need to enforce the action, that is how you stop horrific events from even occurring.
I would hate to see DG have the book thrown at him for this. Yes he is absolutely wrong, but he did nothing exceptionally egregious. He should be punished for the action of deviating from his sprint line, no different than anyone else. The fault of the outcome rests with the organizers and the UCI. They are responsible for ensuring the overall safety of the riders and that includes the barriers and course design. They are the reason for the horrific outcome, not DG.
The UCI needs to be consistent on a multitude of rules.
100%
I agree that line deviation happens in almost every sprint I’ve ever seen. But how is the guy in the front of the sprint deviating from his line different than the guy in second or third sprinting around the person in front of them in order to win the race? It seems that disqualifications only ever happen if the first guy moves and crashes out the second guy but not if the fourth guy moves to get around someone and takes out the guy in sixth that is just behind him.
UCI has a long history of disrespect for the most elementary riders rights specially their safety.
Las year’s TTT in the Vuelta is another case. Even the cars crashed in such a treacherous and dangerous course.
However, blaming this incident solely on them is like blaming the NFL anytime you see a roughing the passer flag with the QB having to be carted out with a concussion.
Dylan G is the real cause of the accident and his attitude deserves a very heavy penalty.
UCI is to blame for sure for allowing a downhill approach to the line, to use very poor designed barriers and to be very light and somehow erratic in handling bad behaviour from sprinters.
When Sagan was ejected from the Tour, a lot of voices were heard saying it was too severe and in general, this kind of ruling is not the norm.
Now maybe we finally will see this life threatening behaviour being handled with a little more heavy handed measures.
By the way, DG was fined 500 swiss francs for this incident.
It is the standard fine.
Unbelievable…
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Hopefully this will lead to a re-evaluation of right and wrong. Unfortunately in this case, I’m betting what DG did will fall on the very wrong side of the line.
This is not an issue unique to cycling, and in fact cycling has one of the lesser consequences for line deviation. Motorsports (f1, motoGP, etc) all have the same issues at play, and all have rules regarding racing line deviation.
Basically all of the rules follow similiar principle; the person/car in the lead gets to determine their “racing line”, as they have the ability to dictate where they want that to be based on their position. Its the responsibility of those behind to figure out how to get around the leader. While the leader gets to determine their line, once it is set in say a turn, or down a straight they aren’t allowed to deviate dramatically from that line simply for the purposes of blocking. Otherwise all someone would do is get in the lead and weave back and forth and put at risk the others trying to pass crashing.
Cycling should be no different. You start your sprint on the left side of the road because its advantageous to you, that’s fine, its the others responsibility to come around you even if it means taking a worse line, but you can’t move right for the sole purpose of boxing them out.
So to answer your question; yeah the guy behind if he wants to cross the line first will have to move around the leader, and that is allowed, but it needs to be a racing move to overtake position, not to defend
Agreed. Unless you can prove there was intent to harm from Dylan (similar to head hunting in the NFL), I dont see why there should be a bigger penalty. If the barriers weren’t so poor, we probably wouldn’t really be having this conversation. He would still be Dq’d/fined, but the injuries would be less severe for all riders who got injured.
Agreed. Penalize the action not the outcome.