Death of Muriel Furrer brings change: UCI makes GPS trackers mandatory in the peloton

Calls for such a tracker grew after 18-year-old Muriel Furrer died during the 2024 World Championships in Switzerland, after she had lain unnoticed beside the course for around an hour and a half. The young rider only received medical attention after the race, because nobody realised where she was.

That tragedy fuelled demands for mandatory GPS rider tracking. Such a device registers when a rider suddenly comes to a halt and relays that information to both the team car and race officials. In that way, organisers would know at all times when and where a rider has crashed.

In a letter to teams, obtained by Sporza, the UCI says it has listened to those calls for GPS tracking. “It will be mandatory and introduced progressively across the different categories,” UCI president David Lappartient wrote.

The UCI already trialled a similar system at the World Championships in Kigali in September, using its own partner Swiss Timing. It was also tested at the women’s Tour de Romandie, but that rollout ran into trouble: five teams were disqualified after refusing the device. Now that dispute has calmed down, teams will soon be allowed to choose their own GPS tracker provider, as long as it meets UCI requirements.

Almost all WorldTour teams already work with a comparable system. Sixteen of the eighteen teams are set to start Milan-San Remo with a GPS tracker. Velon is one of the companies able to provide such technology. According to the company, it offers a tailor-made dashboard with real-time positions and sends alerts when a rider goes off route or remains stationary for too long, with the focus on a cost-efficient and reliable solution.