The first documented deaths of competitive cyclists during competition or training date to the 1890s and early 1900s when the recently invented safety bicycle made cycling more popular, both as a sport and as a mode of transport. [1] The athletes listed here were either professional cyclists, professional pacemakers or well-known competitive amateurs who had a cycling-related death, mostly during a race or during training. Pacemakers are motorcyclists utilized in motor-paced racing, riding motorcycles in front of their cycling teammates to provide additional speed to those cyclists via the resulting slipstream. [2]
Safety has been a concern since cycling’s early days. By 1929, at least 47 people had died while racing at velodromes – 33 cyclists and 14 pacemakers. [3] [Note 1] Motor-paced cycling still exists in the modern era as keirin racing and derny racing. A number of professionals and competitive amateurs have been killed in crashes with motorized vehicles while training on public roads plus there is a growing number of cyclists who have died of heart attacks while cycling in a race or while training. [6] Some of these deaths affect cycle racing afterwards – the death of Andrey Kovalev in a crash during the 2003 Paris–Nice race caused the Union Cyclist International to institute a mandatory helmet rule. The dangers of the various sporting forms of cycling continue to be an issue,[7] including training on public roadways. [8] A survey of 2008 Olympics teams, however, indicated that cycling was not even in the top six most injury-prone sports during competition that year.[9] Racing cyclists who have died during a race or during training are remembered by cycling aficionados and the cycling press. Their personal effects are exhibited in museums,[10] their cemetery markers and tombstones are visited by fans, and as one commentator wrote: “Plaques, statues and shrines to cycling’s fallen heroes are scattered all over Europe’s Mountain roads, turning any ride into a pilgrimage.”[11]
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