Chaos and confusion reign at the start of Female Romandie Tour 2025… while the stages race of Women's Worldtour begins this Friday noon with an individual 4.4 km individual time trial between Huemoz and Villars-sur-Ollon, five major female teams on the fifteen present at the start were excluded from the race following their refusal “to comply with the rules of the race relating to the implementation of GPS tracers as part of the test of a new security system“. Canyon//Sram zondacrypto, EF Education – Oatly, Lidl –Trek, Team Picnic PostNL et Visma Lease a Bike are the teams concerned and have expressed their dissatisfaction with this situation and decision in a press release published by several of them on their networks. The main discord point is the obligation to designate a team runner to wear this tag, the UCI imposing this discriminatory choice on the teams themselves without real clear explanation.
VIDEO – The UCI wants to set up new security measures
“This action flouts the rights of teams and runners”
“We are shocked and disappointed by the UCI's decision to disqualify several teams from the Tour de Romandie female. At the start of the week, all the teams concerned sent official letters to the UCI to express their support for the safety of runners, but express serious concerns about the unilateral taxation of a GPS monitoring device on a single team. We have clearly indicated that:
• We would not select any runners ourselves, nor will not install, remove or not hold the device.
• The UCI or his partner was free to select a runner and install the system under his own responsibility if they considered having the right.
Despite our cooperation and the existence of a collaborative and proven security monitoring system, already successfully tested on other major races (fully operational for the entire peloton and proposed at the UCI), the UCI chose to impose this measure without explicit consent, threaten disqualification and exclude us from the race for not having selected a runner. The reason they refuse to designate a runner themselves remains unknown and unanswered.
Despite the multiple requests from the teams in the past two days, the UCI commissioners have not been able to demonstrate on which basis the UCI regulation obliges the teams to discriminate a runner compared to other runners (with the exception of an official reference to an email from the team union). However, they decided to continue and disqualify the teams with their runners. This action flouts the rights of teams and runners, applies the measurement in a discriminatory manner and contradicts the stated commitment of the UCI in favor of the dialogue with the stakeholders. We are always at the forefront to make cycling a safer sport, but this objective must be achieved by collaboration and not by coercion“.
Jonathan Vaughters : “C’est inadmissible”
As always very involved in the evolution of cycling and quick to react on social networks, Jonathan Vaughtersboss ofEF Education-Oatlyadded her grain of salt in the discussion and brought her light through a message on X. “Regarding the Female Romandie Tour, the five teams disqualified by the UCI were not for having refused the compulsory GPS (not approved), but for not having appointed the runner who was to wear the aircraft and for asking the UCI to designate it. Difficult to understand? I agree. For me, using the World Tour tests as a test field is an error. In addition, once we have chosen to impose your will, refuse to select the runners who will be the victims and leave this decision to the teams? It is unacceptable. And then disqualify teams for not having chosen the victim?“, He concluded, reassembled.
