Anyone who gets on their bike as a professional cyclist lives dangerously. A banal statement, sad but true. A selection of fatalities.
Even if nothing happens: It gives you the shivers every time the professional cyclists sprint handlebar to handlebar, race towards an obstacle in a pack or shoot down into the valley on their thin tires at speeds of up to 100 km/h. Often everything goes well, but time and again athletes pay the highest possible price for their passion for cycling.
Two talented cyclists, Muriel Furrer and Gino Mäder, died within 15 months of each other. Prior to this, Switzerland had been spared bad news for a decade. Before Mäder, Felix Baur was the last Swiss professional cyclist to die while practicing his sport. The young Swiss hopeful had a serious accident at a training camp in Alicante, Spain, and fell into a coma. After returning to Switzerland, the Zurich native succumbed to his severe head injuries in Winterthur Hospital at the age of just 21.
Almost three months ago, 25-year-old André Drege died. The Norwegian crashed on the descent from the Grossglockner during the Tour of Austria and succumbed to his injuries at the scene of the accident.
Two training accidents
Davide Rebellin also died at the scene of the accident. The Italian had survived his career unscathed, but after retiring in 2022 at the age of 51, he was run over by a truck on a ride in his home country. Something similar happened to Michele Scarponi, the winner of the 2011 Giro d'Italia. In 2017, he collided head-on with a van during training in his home town of Filottrano.
Rebellin had won 61 professional victories, while his compatriot Fabio Casartelli would probably have achieved just as many. The 1992 Barcelona Olympic champion crashed on a descent in the Pyrenees during the 1995 Tour de France and crashed into the concrete road barrier. He succumbed to his head injuries, partly because helmets were not yet compulsory at the time.
Tragic years for Belgium
Belgium experienced tragic years between 2014 and 2019. Kristof Goddaert was killed in a training accident in 2014. The 27-year-old fell on streetcar tracks and was run over by a bus.
In 2016, two Belgian drivers lost their lives within the space of a few hours. 25-year-old Antoine Demoitié was run over by a motorcycle after a fall at Ghent-Wevelgem and died in hospital the following night, while Daan Myngheer suffered a cardiac arrest at the age of 22 at the Critérium International in Corsica.
Michael Goolaerts also suffered a cardiac arrest during the 2018 Paris-Roubaix classic. And Bjorg Lambrecht crashed into a concrete pillar at the side of the road in the Tour of Poland in 2019.
Helmets are compulsory
There have been several other deaths in the cycling scene due to heart failure. However, the death of Andrei Kivilyov from Kazakhstan in 2003 was due to an accident: he crashed on the second stage of the Paris-Nice stage race and suffered fatal head injuries. Helmets were then made compulsory for professionals.
Nevertheless, the Belgian Wouter Weylandt paid for his participation in the Giro d'Italia with his life in 2011. The professional cyclist succumbed to his head injuries after a crash.
SDA
