Funeral service in Uster
By Felix Mattis
Muriel Furrer (July 15, 2006 – September 27, 2024) | Photo: UCI
08.11.2024 | (rsn) – Six weeks after her death, Muriel Furrer, who had an accident at the age of 18 in the junior women’s road race at the World Championships in Zurich, was paid her last respects at a farewell service. At a highly emotional funeral service in the Reformed Church in Uster, relatives read out, among other things, three letters from her parents and her brother with moving anecdotes from the life of the young cyclist and shared some of their memories with the more than 100 mourners, as Schweizer Blick reports.
“It was a very emotional funeral service. A lot of young people and a lot of cyclists – active and former – took part,” quotes rad-net.de BDR Vice President Günter Schabel, who together with junior national coach Lucas Schädlich and four riders from his team was present. In addition to Furrer’s national team colleagues Lara Liehner and Sirin Städler, who also spoke in the church, Fabian Cancellara and Sandra Mäder, the mother of Gino Mäder, who died in an accident at the Tour de Suisse in 2023, were also among the mourners.
Furrer fell in the junior women’s world championship road race on the descent through the forest down to Küsnacht and then remained undetected for well over an hour until she was finally found after the race and taken to the Zurich University Hospital in a rescue helicopter. The following day she died there as a result of a severe traumatic brain injury.
The public prosecutor’s office has been investigating since then, but so far no results have been reported from their side. The tragic circumstances of Furrer’s death also raised questions about rescue chains and, above all, the location of participants in cycling races, beyond the legal consequences, to which the world cycling association UCI has not yet presented any answers six weeks later.
Swiss
