The cycling season continues. The Tour de France competition has recently ended, won by Tadej Pogacar. Jonas Vingegaard came second overall, while Remco Evenepoel from Belgium completed the podium. Michał Kwiatkowski, representing Ineos Grenardiers, finished 54th.
Big changes are coming to cycling. They will debut at the Tour de Pologne
On Monday, August 12, the most important and largest race in Poland, the Tour de Pologne, will begin. It turns out that this year's edition will be exceptional. All because of the upcoming changes in cycling, which will come into effect on August 1. As part of the work on the “SafeR” project, the communities of competitors, race organizers, teams and the International Cycling Union (UCI) worked on increasing safety on the road. Here are the key changes provided by the official portal tourdepologne.pl. And they are:
- yellow cards for unsportsmanlike conduct (for competitors, sports directors, but also journalists and photojournalists moving in the peloton)
- limiting radio communications between sports directors and players.
For now, these changes are to be introduced as part of tests in three stages. There has been a lot of talk in the community about the issue of communication between riders and staff. Until now, cyclists have been moving around with a radio receiver and an earpiece in their ear. – Up until now, for years in fact, we have been at the stage of opinions and discussions. Is it better with a radio or without. Now we are moving to the testing phase and this is probably the most valuable. We will finally find out what changes are made by taking away communication from riders. In my opinion, this in itself will be very valuable – says Lotto-Soudal team sports director John Lelangue, quoted by the aforementioned source.
On one stage, each team will provide only two riders with radios, while on another, no one will be able to use them. – These days can also be interesting tests. At the same time, we assure you that limiting radio communication will not mean limiting information. In the breakaway and the peloton, there will always be motorcycles with a board and a message about the advantage or loss. On stages three and four, the riders with radios will have a colored start number so that everyone knows who is in contact with the director – explains Lelangue. If the modifications prove successful, they will be introduced in the UCI World Tour competition.