The announcement fell in a press release from the Bahrain-Victorious team, Friday June 16: the Swiss Gino Mäder, victim of a terrible fall the day before, during the fifth stage of his National Tour, died. He was 26 years old.
“Despite the efforts of the phenomenal team at Chur Hospital”, the climber “could not complete his last and greatest challenge and at 11:30 a.m. we had to say goodbye to one of the lights of our team,” writes the lineup.
The accident occurred during the last descent of the day, just after the ascent of the Albula pass, at kilometer 197. Launched at high speed, Gino Mäder and Magnus Sheffield went off the road and found themselves in a ravine.
The American of the Ineos-Grenadiers training, “conscious” but suffering from “bruises and a concussion”, had been transported to the hospital. Gino Mäder, on the other hand, had been found “inert in the water”. He had been “immediately resuscitated and then transported to Chur hospital by air,” the organization of the Tour de Suisse said on Thursday.
La colère de Remco Evenepoel
As of Thursday evening, the world champion Remco Evenepoel had deplored on Twitter the choice to complete this trying stage with such a route. “Since a summit finish would have been perfectly possible, it was not a good decision to let [the runners] finish this dangerous descent,” the Belgian wrote.
Out of himself on arrival, he attacked the organization, believing that this fall could have been avoided: “There is always something to happen before you realize that it’s irresponsible, the Soudal-Quick Step runner got carried away in remarks reported by Eurosport. We could have been satisfied with arriving at the top… But no, we had to add spectacle. »
The last fatal race accident was in 2019. Belgian Bjorg Lambrecht, 22, succumbed to his injuries after falling and hitting a concrete structure during the 3rd stage of the Tour of Poland.
The race neutralized on Friday
In tribute to Gino Mäder, the Tour de Suisse peloton will only cover the last 30 kilometers of the 6th stage on Friday. The race will be neutralized and all the runners will form a procession, which will reach the finish in Oberwil-Lieli.
On social networks, several big names in cycling have also expressed their emotion, like Tadej Pogacar, Wout van Aert, Mathieu Van der Poel or Julian Alphilippe.
Professional since 2019, Gino Mäder revealed himself during the 2021 season. That year, he finished 2nd in the queen stage of Paris-Nice, before winning stages in the Tour of Italy and the Tour from Switzerland. He also finished 5th and best youngster in the Tour of Spain.
During this edition of the Vuelta, he had also decided to donate one euro to an organization fighting for the environment for each runner he was ahead of throughout the 21 days of racing.
