¡?? ????? ???!
? Caída de Enric Mas junto a Richard Carapaz y el español se duele de su hombro y muñeca.
El abandono, en el aire.#TDF2023 | #LaCasadelCiclismo pic.twitter.com/xQcGpTosxy
— Eurosport.es (@Eurosport_ES) July 1, 2023
It was all over for Movistar leader Enric Mas on stage 1 of the Tour de France last year and now his team boss wants teams to have some form of comeback in such situations
Eusebio Unzue, the boss at Movistar Team, has confirmed his World Tour squad is among those working on the One Cycling project, with one of his priorities the introduction of so-called blood substitutes, especially for Grand Tours.
Amid reports Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is in talks to provide €250 million to the One Cycling project - a small sum in the context of recent changes in other sports - Unzue said he could not reveal too many details as talks were at a sensitive stage.
However, he had very clear views about one of the changes he wanted to see in cycling; a new facility under which replacement riders could be brought into Grand Tours already underway.
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He also wants to make it possible for a rider to be brought away from a stage in an ambulance but to be allowed start the next day, if in a condition to do so.
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“We are thinking about the future of this sport, we are among those holding meetings," he said of One Cycling. "Cycling is the most rigid sport currently, we continue to do things like forty years ago when I arrived."
He added pro cycling should “humanise the regulations" and "stop being so crude, so overly inhumane", citing the example of how injured riders, and their teams are treated on Grand Tours.
“Today, for a rider who crashes to be able to start again the next day, he sometimes has to do 60 or 80 kilometers with a broken wrist," he said. "He can only be examined once he finishes, therefore after having suffered like an animal.
"We really can't humanise this? If a rider falls, isn't that enough reason for him to go to an ambulance, see if anything is broken, and in which case he starts again the next day without having to finish the stage?
"We are not going to ask, like in football, that everything stops while the riders recover. But we must protect their health," he said.
Unzue clarified that if a rider had to be taken from a stage, and not finish, he could be placed last on the stage, thus losing time, but still being allowed to start the next day.
Last year at the Tour de France, Movistar's leader, Enric Mas, crashed on the opening stage and was forced to abandon. Unzue also believes in such situations, teams should be able to bring in a new rider.
“Why not authorise replacements in the Grand Tours when a retirement occurs in the first week?” he said. "All the teams prepare with ten or eleven riders, we leave two or three at home at the last moment, and if a rider falls, are you not entitled to any solution?
"Not a technical or tactical change of course. In football, there was no possible replacement for years… Why not try, test, let's take a step forward and see if everyone finds it interesting. We need change."
