Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of the American World Tour team EF Education-Esay Post, openly attacked Christian Prudhomme, the boss of the Tour de France, following the latter's comments on race safety, and in particular on the speed of the runners. Who's telling the truth? Who is right? Analysis.
At the microphone ofEurosportas relayed by cyclismactu.net, Christian Prudhommethe boss of the Tour de France, spoke some time ago about safety during the races, highlighting the excessive speed of the riders, and implicitly the risks taken by the latter: “ In addition to the behavior of the riders and the work of the organization, it is absolutely necessary to reduce the speed to decent figures. The runners are going too fast. The faster they go, the greater the risk and the greater the danger to themselves and others. ».
“Bigwigs who have never raced on a child’s tricycle”
Words that literally made people come out of their hinges Jonathan Vaughtersthe American training manager EF Education-Easy Postwho reacted very strongly to Xas reported by cyclismactu.net : « It is absolutely infuriating to me how these bigwigs, who have never raced a child's tricycle, and who are making tens of millions of profits on the backs of others, are blatantly blaming safety issues. Cycling on cyclists. They are very competitive people. They are programmed to take life-threatening risks. Just like F1 drivers. And like in F1, the solution is to create a safer environment around them. Because they will always push the limits ».
What did Prudhomme really mean?
The virulence of the words of Vaughters can be understood if we read the words of Prudhomme at the first level: asking runners, whose goal is to arrive first, to go slower is of course absolute nonsense, which can even be seen as a provocation given the efforts made and the risks taken by these last to raise your arms. But it is likely that the words of the Tour boss must be understood differently: in speaking of lowering the speed of the races, Prudhomme places – undoubtedly – more emphasis on the environment around the runners than on the runners themselves. Clearly, he is not saying that runners should try to go slower in a race, but that conditions must be created so that they go slower, for example with limitations on the performance of equipment, bicycles, tires, etc.
