Tour de Suisse peloton pays poignant tribute to Gino Mäder

The Tour de Suisse peloton paid tribute to the late Gino Mäder by riding together along the final 20km of the route of stage 6, which was cancelled following the announcement of the Swiss rider’s death on Friday morning

Word had filtered through to the peloton just as it was assembling in Chur for the planned start of the stage. Even before that tragic confirmation had reached them, his fellow riders had understandably little appetite for a bike race as they waited for news of their fallen comrade.

Romain Bardet spoke for many during that anxious vigil. “We’ve had no news since last night. Nobody is really thinking about the race anymore,” the Frenchman said after he had signed on.

A few minutes later, Bahrain Victorious announced that Mäder had succumbed to the injuries sustained in his crash on the descent of the Albulapass on stage 5. The Tour de Suisse organisation immediately postponed the start of the stage until further notice, then confirmed its cancellation shortly afterwards and formed a memorial procession for the final 20km.

The stage had initially been slated to start from La Punt and climb the Albulapass, bringing the peloton past the very point where Mäder, as well as Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) had crashed on Thursday afternoon. A rock avalanche in the area, however, had seen the organisation compelled to shorten the stage early on Friday morning, with the start instead moved to Chur.

There was an additional layer of poignancy to that amendment to the stage, given that the rockfall was caused by thawing permafrost, an issue to which Mäder had repeatedly drawn attention by using platform as a professional rider. Just last year, he donated 1 Swiss Franc towards the fight against climate change for every rider who finished behind him in a race over the course of the 2022 season.

“Being a kid I had the chance, the luck to see glaciers: ‘The face of the Alps’, ‘Eternal ice',” Mäder wrote then. “Nothing eternal about them as the glaciers of the world lose around 300 billion tons of ice every year. I hope future generations can experience glaciers too.”

Following consultation with Mäder’s family, Tour de Suisse race director Olivier Senn announced that the peloton would pay tribute to their late colleague by riding together along the final 20km of the stage 6 route from the shore of the Türlersee to the finish line in Oberwil-Lieli. Before the riders boarded their team buses to travel onwards to the start of the memorial ride, a minute’s silence was held in honour of Mäder.

“We’re heartbroken – the whole organisation, all the teams, all the riders. It’s just devastating what has happened. It’s really hard to put in words,” Senn told reporters.

Mäder was an undoubted talent on the bike, as his stage win at the 2021 Giro d’Italia and his fifth-place finish at that year’s Vuelta a España testified, but it was his immense human qualities that left the greatest impression on all who met him. His interviews, both in races and away from them, were testament to a range of interests that extended far beyond the bike.

Professional cycling has a tendency to take itself very seriously – too seriously – at times, but Mäder’s freewheeling attitude always felt like an antidote to all that. A sense of fun pervaded his every act on a bike and his every utterance off it. His enthusiasm for cycling and, above all, for the people he met through the sport was obvious.

Memorial ride

The sombre mood of the afternoon was always going to feel utterly at odds with the joy Mäder seemed to embody, but it was still fitting that the tragedy was marked publicly by his peers. Cycling has grown sadly accustomed to occasions such as this over the years, days when a bike race morphs into a funeral cortege, and it was hard not to think of similar, rolling memorials for Fabio Casartelli, Wouter Weylandt and Bjorg Lambrecht as the peloton set out from Türlen.

Most teams donned black armbands, and yellow jersey Mattias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo) was among the riders leading the way in the early part of the memorial ride, before Mäder’s remaining Bahrain Victorious teammates Pello Bilbao, Nikias Arndt, Filip Maciejuk, Fran Miholjevic, Johan Price-Pejtersen and Antonio Tiberi came to the front in the closing kilometres.

The spectators gathered at the roadside greeted the passing riders not with the usual raucous cheers, but with gentle applause. Every now and then, somebody would call out ‘Bravo,’ almost in a hushed voice. Some bore homemade signs to honour Mäder. Others held flowers aloft. Still more stood in silence. All came out to show their solidarity, with those who raced with Mäder and with all those who loved him.

“I’ve spoken to his father and mother. I think it’s important for them as well. They want us not to be sad and to remember him positively,” Senn said afterwards, even if he knew the occasion had been an inescapably sad one.

Mäder’s mother Sandra followed the procession from the passenger seat of a Bahrain Victorious team car. In the final kilometre, the peloton slowed to allow the Bahrain Victorious riders and the two team cars to move ahead and pass first beneath a finish line banner bearing the legend ‘We ride for you, Gino’.

The crowd was greatest here and the applause a little louder. Some of the Bahrain riders held up a hand to acknowledge the support. After crossing the finish line, the rest of the peloton began to seek out the Bahrain riders to offer a consoling arm. World Champion Remco Evenepoel and Swiss riders Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissegger led the many riders who passed on their condolences in person to Sandra Mäder.

'It was really weird to be on the bike'

Out of a sense of duty, the yellow jersey Skjelmose paused to offer his thoughts on the afternoon to the assembled reporters. “I’m sad. It was really weird to be on the bike today. It hit me really hard when I saw only six Bahrain riders going over the line together. That was something really pushing me to the limit emotionally,” said Skjelmose. Like many, he hadn’t even considered whether the race should continue on Saturday.

“For now, we only did 20k neutralised, and I think that was right because Gino’s parents wanted it. I don’t know what’s happening in the next days. And I’m not sure how I really feel about it myself. Right now, I just want to go home and sleep.”

Shortly afterwards, Senn made his way to the press room, where the race director confirmed that talks would now take place with representatives of the riders and teams regarding the remainder of the Tour de Suisse. A decision on whether to continue may not be taken until Saturday morning.

“It’s not a simple decision. There’s a lot of people involved who are very moved by the situation: riders, team members and our staff. Everybody knew him well,” Senn said.

"We will have to discuss if it’s at all possible to organise a race, and if our staff is up for it. We will certainly not push it through just because we want to or have to. We will do it if everyone wants it, if everyone is fit and if the mindset is the right one to produce a safe race tomorrow and the day after.

"We will also discuss with the UCI, the AIGCP and the UCI on what we’re going to do. It will be an open discussion. We will take a common decision. It’s not just our decision but a decision of all the parties. Those discussions will take place in the next hours and maybe the decision will only be tomorrow morning. We don’t know yet.”