Visma-Lease a Bike group supervisor Richard Plugge will be outspoken however isn’t indignant. But the latest spate of high-speed crashes and accidents have hit his riders arduous and left the Dutch supervisor unhappy and indignant in regards to the lack of progress in bettering security in skilled biking.
The Visma-Lease a Bike group leaders are amongst an estimated 40 WorldTour riders who’ve suffered severe crashes within the opening months of the 2024 season. Wout van Aert missed the most important cobbled Classics and won’t get well in time to experience the Giro d’Italia on account of his Dwars door Vlaanderen crash, whereas Jonas Vingegaard remains to be in hospital in Vitoria per week after he crashed at Itzulia Basque Nation.
The 2-time Tour de France winner suffered a fractured collarbone that wanted surgical procedure, fractured ribs and a pulmonary contusion and pneumothorax, in all probability attributable to his chest trauma. It’s nonetheless too early to verify if Vingegaard will have the ability to experience the Tour de France and battle for general victory, however the begin in Florence is just 77 days away.
“Now we have to see how they get well as folks and solely then we will take into consideration once they return to biking. For the time being it’s method too early, we have to allow them to relaxation and get well,” Plugge instructed Cyclingnews.
As supervisor of a big-budget males’s and girls’s programme, Plugge can also be aware of the monetary injury crashes and harm can imply.
He cares about his riders however is aware of {that a} season or two with out main success might see sponsors depart the group. Skilled biking is a precarious leisure enterprise in addition to a sport.
“It’s important to defend your folks but additionally take into consideration the enterprise. That is dangerous to our sport,” Pugge mentioned final week.
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Plugge highlighted the injury the Itzulia crash might have on this 12 months’s Tour de France.
“Crashes break our sport,” he mentioned bluntly. “Everybody was trying ahead to the large showdown on the Tour de France between Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel. Now we would not have that. It’ll be extremely unhappy for the game if any of them are unable to race the Tour de France. Now we have to do one thing about it.”
Plugge’s anger stems from seeing the drama and ache of the crashes and from the frustration that so little appears to have been accomplished to guard the riders as race speeds, bike know-how, street furnishings and different elements mix to make skilled biking extra harmful.
“It’s totally tough to see your riders mendacity on the bottom and know that younger folks, their households and pals will undergo from all of it too. It isn’t solely Jonas or Wout that hurts me, it’s horrible seeing any rider crash arduous,” Plugge mentioned.
Plugge has irritated many within the sport, particularly amongst his rival groups, for Visma-Lease a Bike’s latest dominance and the abrasive method he managed the AIGCP group affiliation earlier than being ousted in March.
He’s additionally concerned within the One Biking undertaking that hopes to draw exterior funding, maybe from Saudi Arabia, and create an alternate enterprise mannequin for groups by taking over the present established order and dominance of the UCI and Tour de France organiser ASO.
Nevertheless, Plugge has additionally labored arduous for the broader good of biking whereas making Visma-Lease a Bike among the finest groups within the sport. He helped create SafeR, the unbiased entity created and funded by the game’s stakeholders to enhance security.
Cyclingnews understands the implementation and activation of the SafeR undertaking has been delayed by bureaucratic causes and debates on management even earlier than it’s totally energetic. That angers Plugge.
“An absence of motion on security makes me unhappy and actually mad,” Plugge mentioned, with anger but additionally selecting his phrases fastidiously.
“Now we have the start of the answer within the SafeR undertaking. It’s principally able to go however for political causes, it is actually dragging on. There’s been an urgency about security for years however what number of get up calls do we want?
“Why is there a delay? If security improves, then security improves, it is good for everyone,” he added.
Security is vital for everybody
Plugge hopes that everybody within the sport can perceive the significance of security within the sport, together with the followers watching from afar.
He praised ASO for placing security forward of historical past and excessive velocity by including a chicane to the doorway of the Forest of Arenberg however highlighted how a race promotion video used footage of crashes.
“To giggle at ASO and the CPA for wanting the chicane and to query why it is wanted is ridiculous, that is previous considering. As an alternative of questioning whether or not it’s a joke, have a dialog with somebody and make it higher,” he mentioned in an obvious reply to Mathieu van der Poel’s doubts in regards to the chicane.
Plugge is conscious that some followers hope for a moist Paris-Roubaix to extend the visible drama of the racing over the cobbles.
“All of the folks sit in entrance of the tv or are glued to social media, maybe they need to attempt to race over moist cobbles – it is like an ice rink, it’s not protected,” he mentioned.
Plugge desires UCI President David Lappartient to take the lead on security. The Frenchman is maybe the one one with sufficient authority to carry all the opposite stakeholders collectively.
On Friday, Ineos Grenadiers group proprietor Jim Ratcliffe referred to as on the ‘governing our bodies’ to take “actual motion.”
Plugge agrees.
“I feel David Lapparient ought to now decide up the glove, as we are saying in Dutch. And I feel he’ll as a result of he is very a lot in favour of bettering security,” Plugge mentioned.
“Everybody has to play their half in bettering security. All of us profit from a protected sport: the rider clearly, but additionally their groups and sponsors, the race organisers, the UCI, and naturally the followers and anybody who loves our sport.
“All of us should be prepared to alter the game, even when we would not just like the adjustments or if it prices us one thing. We’ll profit in the long term. Now we have to place security first.”
