The UCI has amended its rules for bunch sprint finishes, now requiring finish straights to be "as long as possible, at least 200 meters."
The new rule was part of a UCI memorandum published on June 8. This change to the regulations will come into effect from July 1, with the sport's headline event, the Tour de France, starting on July 4 in Barcelona.
"The event safety manager shall pay special attention to the final section of the race route and shall ensure that the safety requirements are observed," read the amended regulation [2.2.017].
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"The finishing straight should be as long as possible, at least 200 meters. This is especially important for events likely to finish in bunch sprints."
Previously, the rule only read: "The event safety manager shall pay special attention to the final section of the race route, and the final hundredth meters before the finish in particular and shall ensure that the safety conditions are observed. This is especially important for events likely to finish in bunch sprints."
It comes after a string of 2026 finishes have come into question over safety, and how they were approved, notably at the Giro d'Italia and Giro d'Italia Women, where several bends in the final kilometres of sprint stages and crashes were almost becoming commonplace.
Jonathan Milan had his say on the requirements for bunch sprint finishes after stage 6 of the men's Giro d'Italia in Naples, where a U-turn on cobbles in the final kilometre signalled danger. And that's exactly what happened, with rain earlier in the day contributing to the two leading Unibet Rose Rockets riders slipping out and causing a crash just before the sprint.
"I really don't get why we have to try to find this complicated finish - I really don't get it," Milan told Eurosport.
"You know for sure, we could think that it would rain, and maybe to be safe, like some years ago, we could just go straight. But no, with two drops of water, we create a huge mess."
Similar danger was noted after stage 6 of the women's Giro, when Elisa Balsamo emerged as the winner from a messy final in Brescello, with several bends in the last kilometre. It was a benefit for the technical skills of Maggie Coles-Lyster, who finished second, but it would have been much safer if the race had finished on a straight road.
More recently, Henry Hobbs won on a dangerous finale at the Oberösterreich Rundfahrt in Reichersberg, Austria, where a corner in the final 50m led to a crash at the end of a tight, uphill bunch sprint.
In these cases, the Naples final likely would still be approved as the finishing straight was at least 300m after the U-turn, pointing to how the rule isn't perfect from a safety standpoint.
But the Brescello finish and that in Reichersberg wouldn't have fallen into the "finishing straight being at least 200 meters" category, with a late kink in the road in the former, and the final turn coming way too late in the latter.
