BRATISLAVA. On Thursday, during the ceremonial presentation of the teams before the Tour de France, the very first group of cyclists observed a minute’s silence in memory of Gino Mäder.
The Swiss was nominated by the team for the Tour this year. It was supposed to be his first start and he was supposed to stand next to the other competitors on the podium at the Guggenheim Museum.
At the Tour, he was supposed to help the pair of leaders Pello Bilbao and Mikel Landa.
However, he remained only in memories.
He fell by his own fault
Mäder suffered fatal injuries in the descent from the Albula Pass in the race Around Switzerland. He went too fast in one of the corners and ended up in a ravine.
“I left the hospital after one in the morning thinking that we would be wiser in the morning. We still believed that Gino would survive.
Even so, we had to deal with the organizers from the morning, what we will do if he dies. What happened,” described Roman Kreuziger, sports director of the Bahrain Victorious team, for idnes.cz.
The entire team withdrew from the race after the next stage. Kreuziger says they are very open about the tragedy with all the racers.
“We didn’t hide anything from them. Those who start the Tour now know that we are here for them and can ask for the help of a psychologist at any time,” he says.
The team was interested in the details of the accident.
He analyzed the situation and tried to find out what caused it. “Everything indicates that it was a riding error and there was no outside influence,” says Kreuziger.
A number with a unit at the end is missing
To honor the memory of their colleague, the Bahrain Victorious racers will ride with the hashtag #RideforGino. (We race for Gino). And among the starting numbers that the team received, it is missing with the unit at the end, which is usually held by the leader.
Symbolically, they left him out because of Mäder. The first number was given to Mikel Landa – 62.
The death of one of the colleagues affected many. Tom Pidcock of the Ineos team describes that many racers stopped taking risks and were more cautious.
2023-06-30 13:48:36
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