Brussels (AFP)

Winding routes, narrow roads and badly placed barriers: part of the professional peloton has again demanded more safety on the races after the heavy fall on Saturday of the Colombian Alvaro Hodeg at the Tour de l'Eurométropole.

In the final meters of the event, the rider of the Deceuninck team was thrown to the ground after having violently hit the feet of a safety barrier. He suffers from multiple fractures.

"This type of barrier should be banned EVERYWHERE!", Responded on Twitter the Italian rider Matteo Trentin, before ironizing in a second message on the importance given by the International Cycling Union to other rules, such .. the length of socks runners.

Retweeted by several runners, including Frenchman Warren Barguil and Irishman Sam Bennett, his publications crystallize a feeling of insecurity fueled by a number of incidents this season.

The fall of Hodeg is indeed reminiscent of the equally spectacular Belgian Wout van Aert at the 13th stage of the last Tour de France: one kilometer from the arrival of the Pau time trial, the former specialist cyclo-cross was embedded in a barrier, which had caused a deep wound in the leg.

Belgian driver Bjorg Lambrecht left his life on the roads of the Tour de Pologne on August 5th.

In question, according to Polish media: a concrete structure, that the runner of the Lotto-Soudal would have struck before falling into a ditch.

A dozen days later, the Associate Professional Cyclists (CPA), an association charged with defending the interests of the runners, published a communiqué denouncing the deficiencies of another test, the BinckBank Tour, in terms of safety.

"Participants complain uniformly about narrow streets, unmarked obstacles, sharp curves and ground holes near arrivals (...) Riders face an obstacle course in the city," the team said. CPA.

And the fears of the runners are also those of their relatives.

- CPA go up to the front -

"I'm sometimes asked if I'm scared when Edward Theuns rolls around," tweeted Belgian runner Lien Crapoen's companion.

"Here is the answer: it was (again) awful to see someone hit the barriers so violently ... (...) Care for the safety of the runners."

Accused by the CPA of "not changing much" in terms of safety, despite repeated warnings, the UCI reacted at the World Championships in Yorkshire in late September.

Due to "extreme weather conditions", the queen event - the men's elite race - has been shortened by about 25 kilometers.

More classic, messages enjoining the spectators to the prudence were also diffused during the test.

A new front could have opened when Jumbo-Visma, the team of Wout van Aert, considered late September to file a complaint against the organizer of the Tour de France, ASO.

But the threat has not yet materialized, perhaps because of a frank discussion between the runner and the Belgian legend of the classics Tom Boonen, retired since 2017.

"I'm afraid this (a possible complaint, ed) is a bit of the death of cycling," said the quadruple winner of Paris-Roubaix on Flemish television.

"If it turns out to your advantage, we will have 350 such cases per season and no organizer will want to organize a race," said Boonen to his compatriot.

"It's my team and my management who feel it's important not to leave things as they are," said a tense Aert van. "But the damage I suffered is not thin."

Now that the end of the season is approaching, the ball is in the lineup of the CPA, who are scheduled to meet the UCI on Wednesday.

Among the ideas on the table, "a mandatory minimum distance between vehicles and runners, different supply zones, barriers and safer arrivals for all races", proposes the association on its site.

© 2019 AFP