Between competition and sadness: World Cycling Championships commemorate Muriel Furrer

Saturday lunchtime in Uster. The six riders of the Swiss national team stand arm in arm at the starting line for the World Championship road race. The orange rain jackets shine in the constant rain of this gloomy day. A driver cries. There is a minute’s silence for her teammate. Muriel Furrer died on Friday at the age of 18 from the serious head injuries she suffered the day before in a fall in the junior women’s race.

Those involved in the Cycling and Para-Cycling World Championships in Zurich are mastering a difficult balancing act these days: a young rider loses her life on the seventh day of the race, but the competitions continue and there is a fight for world championship titles.

These are days between hope and sadness. Between concern and the attempt to find meaning in carrying on. Swiss Cycling managing director Thomas Peter says: “We live in two worlds.”

They are also days with many unanswered questions.

Thursday evening, 6:30 p.m. The organizers announced that the U-19 rider Muriel Furrer fell in a forest for reasons that are still unclear. She suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and is in a very critical condition. She was flown by rescue helicopter to Zurich University Hospital and underwent emergency surgery.

The junior women’s race took place between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. Up to the time of the statement, no information about a serious accident was ever leaked; During the afternoon, Swiss Cycling learned how serious Furrer’s injuries were, and the various teams in action were first informed.

How Furrer fell and what happened afterwards remains the great mystery of the tragedy. As things stand today, no one observed the fall; Furrer was probably alone at the time. The responsible cantonal police and the public prosecutor’s office are investigating the circumstances of the accident; The organizers and the world association UCI refuse to comment on this, citing the ongoing investigations.

It is clear in which part of the forest Furrer had an accident. The road curves through the forest in front of the entrance to Küsnacht. It is steep, but the curves are not considered tricky. It rained heavily during the race and the road was probably slippery. Furrer grew up just a few kilometers away in Egg and knows every street in the area inside out.

In the video of the broadcast of a later race, two ambulances and police cars can be seen standing at a point in the forest. The “Blick” first suggested that Furrer had been lying undetected in the forest for a long time. Spectators in the region did not observe any rescue operations during the entire junior women’s race. There is evidence to support this assumption.

Furrer was initially treated by an ambulance, and Rega came later. The flight tracker website Flightaware records a helicopter mission to Küsnacht at 12:52 p.m. Rega confirmed at the request of the NZZ that a helicopter flew a mission from Zurich at that time on Thursday. It was the first one that day. At this time the junior women’s race had already been over for an hour.

According to the UCI analysis of the race, when the time was measured after the first lap at Sechseläutenplatz, which the riders passed about an hour before the finish, Furrer never passed; this suggests that she fell on the first lap.

How can it be that a driver disappears during a World Championship race? That no passenger, no marshal, no support car noticed the fall? Unlike World Tour races, the drivers at World Championships are not connected by radio to the trainers in the team car. This could have made it difficult to get an overview of what was happening in the race given the fragmented field. The bikes are equipped with a GPS tracker, but the information is primarily used for TV reporting. They are also evaluated by the police.

 

Thursday: Memories of Gino Mäder

When Furrer’s critical condition was announced on Thursday evening, wishes for recovery quickly began to gather under her last entry on Instagram. Sandra Mäder also wishes the Furrer family a lot of strength. She is the mother of Gino Mäder, the Swiss cyclist who died in an accident at the Tour de Suisse in June 2023. He fell while descending the Albula Pass. For him, too, it was a road that he had driven countless times before.

Mäder is everywhere in Zurich these days. Mäder’s name adorns the street near Furrer’s accident site; fans had painted it there before a stage of the Tour de Suisse. After Mäder’s death, there was a memorial ride instead of a stage, after which the race continued. Many riders dropped out; some’s initial reaction was that they never wanted to ride a bike again. For others, the usual structure of a race was good and they continued driving.

It is difficult to believe that Swiss cycling has lost hope for the future twice within 15 months. As with any accident, the question of safety in cycling immediately arises. Drivers are now traveling faster than before, partly because of improvements in the material. A few days after Mäder’s accident in June 2023, officials and organizers met with team and driver representatives and came to the conclusion that something had to happen when it came to safety. But little has actually happened so far. This is also because there are numerous causes of falls.

Mäder’s death triggered concrete actions at Swiss Cycling. We are currently working with the University of Bern and the UCI to set up a study design to develop individualized helmets. Swiss Cycling managing director Thomas Peter told SRF that they hope to be able to produce the first prototypes in the coming years.

Friday: the sad certainty

Friday morning, 8:25 a.m., the next message: Furrer’s condition is still very critical. But the World Championships will continue according to the racing program, “in consultation with and in the interests of the family”. In those days, Swiss Cycling was mainly in contact with his father. He also wants as many Swiss people as possible to be at the start of the further races.

The fact that there is no women’s race on Friday gives the association a chance to take a breather. Since Thursday afternoon, the same care team that the association set up after Mäder’s death has been available to the drivers in the team hotel in Kloten. Swiss Cycling leaves it open to the riders and staff whether they would like to continue to work.

At 11 a.m., the women’s national team sets off on an easy ride on the World Cup track, including the city circuit, and they also pass the scene of the accident. In the affected section of the forest, the organizers have meanwhile expanded safety precautions: more marshals, trees covered with mats; Forest paths are cordoned off near the suspected accident site to deter onlookers.

At 2:47 p.m. the news arrives that Muriel Furrer has succumbed to severe head injuries. The SRF continues to broadcast the men’s U-23 race without comment. Jan Christen, one of the most promising young drivers in Switzerland, fights for victory alone for a long time in front of the field. A few kilometers before the finish he was finally caught and came fourth. “Today I left everything I had out there for Muriel,” he later wrote on social networks.

The ceremony is shortened and takes place in front of a depressed audience. The flags will hang at half-mast for the rest of the World Cup, and events in the supporting program will be canceled.

 

At the same time, a few meters away in the congress hall, World Cup race director Olivier Senn and UCI sports director Peter Van Den Abeele take a few minutes to answer questions from journalists. Most of them cannot answer them; reference is repeatedly made to the authorities’ investigations. There is a sticker on Senn’s laptop from the “Ride for Gino” movement, a fundraiser that was launched after Mäder’s death. Senn was also at the forefront back then, he is director of the Tour de Suisse, he mediated and communicated, decided and organized.

The Swiss sports world is expressing its dismay on the internet: Federal Councilor and Sports Minister Viola Amherd, Olympic champions Fabian Cancellara and Nino Schurter react with horror to the death of the young athlete.

Furrer was an extremely versatile and technically skilled driver. She made a name for herself primarily as a mountain biker and cross-country cyclist, but was also the Swiss track champion and was selected for international championships in all disciplines. In May of this year she won bronze in the relay at the Junior European Cross-Country Championships and came fifth in the individual event.

On her Instagram profile, Furrer is seen as a young woman who was eager to train and learn and was able to get something positive out of every race weekend. She shared her thoughts with her followers and also wrote how faith in God helped her. In their farewell, Swiss Cycling and her teammates described her as a warm-hearted, positive and humble young woman who always had a smile on her face.

After her death, the question arises again: What next? The Furrer family reiterates that the races should take place. If it had been different, Swiss Cycling would have advocated for a cancellation with the UCI and the OK.

Saturday: Racing for Muriel

Saturday morning, 9:30 a.m. It’s raining again. Marc Hirschi says in the video call from the team hotel that he spent the last few days in Mallorca to avoid catching a cold. Before the big race on Sunday in which he wants to become world champion. He talks about the tactics, his favorite outsider role, as he calls it. He doesn’t want to talk about Muriel Furrer. Everyone in the Swiss team deals with the difficult situation differently, says Thomas Peter, there has to be room for everything. As an association, they tried to get the best out of the drivers and not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the situation.

On Saturday afternoon, the organizing committee set up a place of mourning not far from the World Cup route at the Wasserkirche in Zurich. At around 5 p.m., after four hours in the rain, the women of the elite race reach the finish line. Noemi Rüegg is the best Swiss woman in eleventh place. She would have liked to compete for the podium against the winner Lotte Kopecky, but the last two days have shown once again that there are more important things than results. “It was nice to finish and hug my family.”

 

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