Visma-Lease a Bike workforce supervisor Richard Plugge may be outspoken however is never indignant. Yet the current spate of high-speed crashes and accidents have hit his riders laborious and left the Dutch supervisor unhappy and indignant in regards to the lack of progress in enhancing security in skilled biking.
The Visma-Lease a Bike workforce leaders are amongst an estimated 40 WorldTour riders who’ve suffered critical crashes within the opening months of the 2024 season. Wout van Aert missed the largest cobbled Classics and won’t get better in time to trip the Giro d’Italia because of his Dwars door Vlaanderen crash, whereas Jonas Vingegaard continues to be in hospital in Vitoria per week after he crashed at Itzulia Basque Country.
The two-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 continues to be too early to substantiate if Vingegaard will have the ability to trip the Tour de France and combat for general victory, however the begin in Florence is barely 77 days away.
“We must see how they get better as individuals and solely then we will take into consideration after they return to biking. At the second it’s manner too early, we have to allow them to relaxation and get better,” Plugge informed Cyclingnews.
As supervisor of a big-budget males’s and girls’s programme, Plugge can also be aware of the monetary injury crashes and damage can imply.
He cares about his riders however is aware of {that a} season or two with out main success may see sponsors go away the workforce. Professional biking is a precarious leisure enterprise in addition to a sport.
“You have to guard your individuals but in addition take into consideration the enterprise. This is dangerous to our sport,” Pugge stated final week.
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Plugge highlighted the injury the Itzulia crash may have on this 12 months’s Tour de France.
“Crashes destroy our sport,” he stated bluntly. “Everyone was wanting ahead to the large showdown on the Tour de France between Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel. Now we’d not have that. It’ll be extremely unhappy for the game if any of them are unable to race the Tour de France. We must 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 carried out to guard the riders as race speeds, bike know-how, street furnishings and different elements mix to make skilled biking extra harmful.
“It’s very troublesome to see your riders mendacity on the bottom and know that younger individuals, their households and pals will endure from all of it too. It’s not solely Jonas or Wout that hurts me, it’s horrible seeing any rider crash laborious,” Plugge stated.
Plugge has irritated many within the sport, particularly amongst his rival groups, for Visma-Lease a Bike’s current dominance and the abrasive manner he managed the AIGCP workforce affiliation earlier than being ousted in March.
He can also be concerned within the One Cycling mission that hopes to draw outdoors funding, maybe from Saudi Arabia, and create another enterprise mannequin for groups by taking over the present establishment and dominance of the UCI and Tour de France organiser ASO.
However, Plugge has additionally labored laborious for the broader good of biking whereas making Visma-Lease a Bike probably the greatest 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 mission has been delayed by bureaucratic causes and debates on management even earlier than it’s absolutely lively. That angers Plugge.
“A scarcity of motion on security makes me unhappy and actually mad,” Plugge stated, with anger but in addition selecting his phrases fastidiously.
“We have the start of the answer within the SafeR mission. It’s mainly 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.
Safety is essential 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 pace by including a chicane to the doorway of the Forest of Arenberg however highlighted how a race promotion video used footage of crashes.
“To snort at ASO and the CPA for wanting the chicane and to query why it is wanted is ridiculous, that is previous considering. Instead of questioning whether or not it’s a joke, have a dialog with somebody and make it higher,” he stated 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 the individuals 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 stated.
Plugge needs UCI President David Lappartient to take the lead on security. The Frenchman is probably the one one with sufficient authority to carry all the opposite stakeholders collectively.
On Friday, Ineos Grenadiers workforce 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 enhancing security,” Plugge stated.
“Everyone has to play their half in enhancing security. We all profit from a protected sport: the rider clearly, but in addition their groups and sponsors, the race organisers, the UCI, and naturally the followers and anybody who loves our sport.
“We all must be prepared to alter the game, even when we’d not just like the modifications or if it prices us one thing. We’ll profit in the long term. We must put security first.”