Pro racing has seen its fair share of safety breaches in recent years, with the 2020 crash at Tour de Pologne probably the worst. The finish line infrastructure was so poor it broke up when riders crashed into it and the crowd control barriers turned into missiles that flew into the bunch.
Already this season, though it is just weeks old, we have seen some sketchy moments; barriers appearing in the middle of the road at Saudi Tour with no padding around them and no forewarning for the riders.
Related News
And now Tour of Antalya (2.1) in Turkey has witnessed the latest risky moment. The riders were forced to a near halt after meeting with oncoming traffic stopped on a dual carriageway.
While there were no crashes as a result of the incident on yesterday’s stage 2, it was pretty clear there was a miscommunication between the police and race organisers. The police stopped the traffic on the course with about 60km to go, but somehow the bunch was oncoming on the same side of the road.
It meant the main field raced into a stationary traffic jam and the riders were forced to jump onto the opposite side of the road, via the central meridian; not the kind of thing we want to see in professional cycling.
