The five teams which the UCI disqualified from the women's Tour de Romandie last month have filed an appeal with the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS), saying that the UCI's move "violated UCI Regulations, was disproportionate, imposed without due process, and enforced in a manner that left riders and teams feeling intimidated".
The appeal to CAS will not change the fact that 30 riders were not allowed to compete in the Tour de Romandie Féminin, but could end the UCI's referral of the case to the Disciplinary Commission and the threat to have the UCI Licence Commission revoke their licenses.
The saga began with the death of Swiss junior Muriel Furrer during last year's UCI Road World Championships. Furrer crashed in a remote section of the Swiss course, and her situation was undetected for around 90 minutes. By the time she was airlifted to the Zurich University Hospital, it was too late.
As a response, the UCI developed a GPS tracking system with its partner, Swiss Timing, to make sure riders would not suffer a similar fate. They announced to the Tour de Romandie teams that it would be running a test of the system during the race. They told the teams to appoint riders to attach the GPS units to their bikes.
Five teams - Lidl-Trek, Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, EF Education-Oatly, Picnic-PostNL and Team Visma-Lease a Bike - objected to the UCI using them to test the technology. They also expressed concern that the UCI did not ask for consent to collect their location tracking data, only informing them they were required to participate in the test.
After the teams refused to elect riders to carry the trackers, saying the UCI could select the riders instead, the UCI officials disqualified each team.
The teams issued a joint press release on Friday, just after UCI President David Lappartient called their action at the Tour de Romandie "blackmail". He said the teams were concerned that the UCI would commercialise their location data.
Some of the teams are partners with Velon, which has its own GPS tracking system to deliver live data such as speed, power, cadence, and location, on broadcast and digital platforms.
Lappartient insisted the UCI would not use the data for commercial purposes.
"I said, 'Look guys, it's only about safety, it's only a cost for us, and of course we will not commercialise any datas. But I will also not have a license to use the tools to put devices for safety, and I will not ask permission for that.' So, that was the situation behind this," Lappartient said.
The UCI has deployed the GPS tracking technology in all of the fields during the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, and announced on Friday that they intend to roll it out for all UCI races, beginning with the WorldTour.
"It is clear that the goal is to have GPS trackers for all the races in the future. We want this for the WorldTour, and after that, it's possible for the Pro Series, that would be nice," Lappartient said.
