The UCI and the native organising committee on the Street World Championships in Zurich have stated they’re unable to supply any data on the circumstances of Muriel Furrer’s deadly crash on the junior ladies’s highway race on account of an ongoing police investigation.
Furrer was airlifted by helicopter to Zurich College Hospital after sustaining a severe head harm in a crash throughout Thursday’s race. The Swiss rider, who raced at worldwide degree 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 have 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 got no safe data in the meanwhile, and due to this fact we won’t touch upon this,” Senn stated.
“There is no such thing as a safe data, and meaning every little thing that’s out there’s hearsay. I wish to ask you to additionally respect the household. Please use wherever attainable information and never rumours.”
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Experiences in Swiss media have prompt the crash occurred within the forestry above Küsnacht on the World Championships ending circuit, although the UCI and the organising committee have been unable to verify the exact location.
“Not but,” stated 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 got clearly seemed on the state of affairs which occurred there yesterday. We’ve got barely amended the workers on-site, particularly as a result of within the afternoon when it began raining once more, not realizing if that had any influence on the accident.
“As at all times, we consider we do at all times the utmost on the protection and safety of the riders. The downhill was checked out once more simply in the present day with the rain on website.”
Requested if the timing chip in Furrer’s bike had been used to find her after the crash, Van den Abeele stated, “The investigation continues to be happening, however certainly the examination of the trackers might 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 passed off with out music or the taking part in 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 stated.
Furrer’s demise is the second such tragedy in Swiss biking in slightly over a yr, 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 normal supervisor of the Zurich 2024 organising committee.
“Clearly, it is one other tragic demise. It has loads of similarities and related emotions,” Senn stated. “However in the present day isn’t about Gino. Immediately is about Muriel, and my ideas are together with her household.”
