Swiss Cycling has been through two tragedies in the last year. First the death of Gino Mäder at the Tour de Suisse, the biggest WorldTour race in Switzerland, and now the death of Muriel Furrer, at its home World Championships. “You don’t ride a bike to die”, David Lappartient, president of the UCI, said.

The 18-year-old crashed just kilometres away from her hometown of Egg, just to the south of Zürich, during the women’s junior road race on Thursday. The event has understandably cast a pall over the World Championships, with the mood sombre, but the decision was taken to keep the races going, but with less celebration.

Little is known about the incident, with live questions about the cause of Furrer’s crash, the time of it, and also how long before she was taken to hospital by air ambulance. There are also queries over the safety of the race course, the same race course that will be used by the elite men’s and women’s road races on Saturday and Sunday, along with some of the para-cycling events. Additional safety measures have been taken on the course, it was confirmed on Friday.

“We don’t know exactly what happened, that’s the job of the police, they are working on it, to figure out the conditions of how the accident happened,” Lappartient said. “I don’t want to make any conclusions on this. We can have different scenarios and I don’t want the radios, or this accident to be used in that discussion. The crash happened, we don’t know how, that’s the job of the police, and it’s too early to have any conclusion to say it would have been possible to find her earlier with a radio or not. We will establish the conditions with the police.”

“We don’t know exactly all the circumstances of the accident,” he continued. “It [the investigation] may take some time, they [the police] will go at their speed, they will deal with their procedures. We will respect this. When we have this kind of information, we have to also evaluate with the family, with the national federation, which information we will provide and whether we have to provide that or not. We have a crisis communication system with the UCI and also with the authorities. I will not here say that it was potentially like this, let’s see the conclusions that will happen.”

Asked what he would say to the parents of a Swiss junior cyclist who would afraid to allow their child to race, the UCI’s president said: “It’s a good question, because we are not in a football stadium, something closed where the risk is really limited. We are on open roads. Most accidents are not in competition, it’s in training. Some riders died or were seriously injured during training sessions.

“The first condition is to provide a safe environment for the racing,” Lappartient continued. “But we know that 50% of crashes happen because of bad behaviour. There is not one reason, and it’s not so easy. Those of you who are cyclists, in the bunch a touch of wheels happen and it can be a drama, it’s not always the fault of the organiser, not the fault of the UCI. It’s not an easy topic, but we are working together, we have improved the system, it’s getting better. With the multiplication of obstacles, it’s more and more difficult to organise bike races.”

“We believe at the UCI that cancelling was not the right way to keep Muriel’s memory going,” he said. “I had a lot of discussions yesterday with Swiss cycling. There were different options for them, in order to celebrate the memory of Muriel, and collectively, we thought stopping the race was not the best way. It can’t be the same, we cancelled the Gala dinner, the music and festival we also cancelled a lot of things. We want it to be at the minimum, to have the sport to continue, to celebrate the cyclists themselves.”

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‘You don’t ride a bike to die’ – UCI unable to provide more information on Muriel Furrer’s death despite questions, police investigation ongoing

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