20-year-old Italian rider Andrea Raccagni Noviero has made an emotional 'apology' to Muriel Furrer and her family after her tragic death at the World Championships in Zurich, calling out to his fellow riders to speak out for better safety.
Raccagni Noviero revealed he will ride for the Soudal-QuickStep WorldTour team on Monday after two impressive seasons in the Belgian development team. He is the current under-23 Italian time trial champion and finished 13th in the under-23 time trial in Zurich.
He posted his emotional message on Instagram a week after Furrer died. Furrer suffered a critical head injury when she crashed in the junior women's road race on September 26.
The 18-year-old's death was announced the day after with local authorities and the UCI preferring not to reveal details of the crash as Swiss police carry out their investigation.
Local media reported that Swiss Air-Rescue's first helicopter mission in the Zurich area on Thursday departed at 12:52 pm, more than an hour after the finish of the junior women's road race. It is believed – though it has not been confirmed – that Furrer crashed near Küsnacht with more than 30km left to race. There is so far no explanation why Furrer was not found at the time of the crash.
Riders who publicly support Raccagni Noviero's post on Instagram included Australia's Luke Plapp, Letizia Borghesi, Ariann Fidanza, Rachel Neylan and the Soudal-QuickStep team.
The news of Furrer's death shocked riders and many others in the sport. Raccagni Noviero bravely spoke out a week after her death.
"Maybe this post will not be helpful as I would like to, but at least it will give me the possibility to apologise to Muriel and her family," he wrote.
"Because as I said, this is also my fault and the fault of all the other riders who have never spoken in front of clear safety issues.
"It's also our fault. If we're at this point now, it's because we're not even trying to change things."
Raccagni Noviero spoke about the risks he took and the danger he faced during the descent to Lake Zurich during the World Championship time trial.
"Every athlete that has rode the time trial like I did, risked their lives going downhill, which made ZERO sense to be there, and everyone knew it," he wrote.
"We are playing a sport that's already very dangerous and the exact moment you decide to enter a race, you know what risks you'll take, but this, this is something more. It just means that the people making decisions don’t care about our safety at all and WE have zero respect for our lives.
"We're just accepting it, but is this what we want? Certainly not Muriel's family, to whom I send my deepest condolences, and at the same time I apologise, because I had the opportunity to speak and I didn't do it sooner.
"And I also want to apologise to you Muriel, because like any other 18-year-old person, you deserved to live your life to the fullest and not lose it like that, and I feel guilty for that. I wish every athlete who has been through too dangerous situations and has never said it out loud to join me in apologising to them.
"We need to do something to change all this, and it's up to us because we've seen lately that something is not working properly.
"So my wish is that as many guys as possible (or anyone in the cycling world) would repost this so we can try and be as loud as possible to make the sport we love a little safer. Some ideas will come but we have to start somewhere."
