Étoile de Bessèges 2025, it's chaos: cars on the route and protests by the runners

Rome, 7 February 2025 - An increasingly technological cycling but, at times, also increasingly chaotic and disorganized in spite of the attempts to increase security: in this contradiction it happens that the new season already experiences one, or rather two moments of strong tension in theStar of Bessèges 2025, Scheduled 5 al 9 February but already now strongly in the balance and in the crosshairs of the most ferocious controversies.  

What happened at the Étoile de Bessèges 2025

  The first critical moment occurred yesterday, when a car, in the space between the 51" that separated the escapees and the group, had entered the route in the opposite direction to that of the race and therefore with the serious risk of causing a massacre: a gendarme promptly avoided the worst, making everyone breathe a sigh of relief without however quelling the first round of controversy. History repeats itself today, and not even once: the runners suddenly find themselves facing a first car after a roundabout before meeting other 'specimens' later on in the route. Too many to continue. Many athletes thus put their foot down and stop, referring the matter to their sports directors, who in turn are in conversation with the jury of the southern race of the FranceThe ball is passed to the president of the jury, to the director of the organization and to three representatives of the runners, called to vote: two of them expressed the opinion against the restart of the race, which is losing pieces along the way. 21 teams at the start, in fact, 8 they are definitively withdrawing: it is a question of Soudal-Quick Step, Lidl Trek, Decathlon AG2R The World Team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Uno-X Mobility, Ineos Grenadiers, Unibet Tietema Rockets ed EF Education-EasyPost, who will later issue press releases with very similar polemical content. The remaining candidates in the race 89 runners, Among which Arnaud De Lie, who writes his name in the roll of honour of today's controversial stage which, to borrow a football expression, was saved in the corner thanks to the compromise found during negotiations which also saw the CPA (the runners' association): yes to continuing the race, but on condition that the climb and descent of the Col de Brousse and to eliminate the last lap. However, precisely, this solution did not find a plebiscite either, as evidenced by the stampede of several teams and the subsequent anger for a cycling that is increasingly struggling to combine spectacle and security. In fact, the problem of theStar of Bessèges 2025 more than being linked to the route and some of its critical points perhaps influenced by the weather, it concerns the road system, practically the ABC of cycling: especially if there is a race at stake UCI Europe Tour  category 2.1.

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