Dubai: Riders’ representative and Team Dimension Data rider Bernhard Eisel has called on the world governing body to work on a concrete weather protocol to better handle situations like what occurred during the penultimate stage of the Dubai Tour on Friday.
The Austrian rider, who is in his 17th year as a professional, stressed that an official document would cancel out confusion surrounding a race in the case of adverse weather conditions.
Organisers RCS Sport and Dubai Sports Council (DSC) had to wait till the last minute before cancelling Stage 4 from Dubai to the Hatta Dam on Friday due to bad weather.
“Normally, race organisers always listen to the riders. But my suggestion would be that we need a protocol that is in black and white. If you know that there are winds in excess of 60kph then you have a rule in place. There is no discussion and the rules are there to be applied. It’s that simple,” Eisel suggested.
“But now it’s like the race organisers and sponsors getting involved in the decision-making. Things can get a bit fluid. We are the only sport where the biggest asset we have is the riders. There is a lot of budget out there, and it is not the bikes, it’s not the cards, but it is the riders. They need to be consulted and safe-guarded. We need a weather protocol in black and white. Whether it is snow, rain or whatever, there should be rules set in place,” he added.
“Otherwise it is just going to be utter confusion and the spectators back home on TV will not understand what’s going on. On the other hand, there may be people who might say we are soft as athletes. It is not just about putting a lot of money on the table and risking it all out there. We never should forget it is sports and there is life beyond that,” he stressed.
Eisel, however, fully endorsed the decision taken by the race committee to cancel Friday’s fourth stage to Hatta. “I was a bit more vocal already on the first day as itself as we all knew the weather wouldn’t be at its best on Friday. But the organisers did the right thing to wait till the last day before taking a decision,” the Austrian said.
“It’s part of the race stage and it could have changed GC (General Classification) a little bit. We even made the effort to ride out there for two hours. The wind just picked (up) and we could see that there was no way we could have had a safe stage out there. It was the right decision to cancel the stage,” Eisel noted.
“In fact, I was suggesting a short time trial at the Hatta Dam just like a little bit of a consolation for the people. But that too was not possible. It is how it is and at the end of the day it was the right decision to take and cancel.”
