{"id":191133,"date":"2022-11-21T14:46:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T14:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=191133"},"modified":"2022-11-22T10:45:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T10:45:05","slug":"climate-change-is-threatening-grand-tour-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2022\/11\/21\/climate-change-is-threatening-grand-tour-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change is Threatening Grand Tour Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate change is changing the world and the way we live in it. The failure of the participants of the recent COP 27 meeting in Egypt to arrive at an agreement that will significantly alter the pace of global warming is just another indication that while many policymakers talk the talk, they are too beholden to powerful commercial interests to walk the walk and pass stringent and effective laws to save the planet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While climate doomsday is still a fairly distant threat, evidence of a climate disaster continues to accumulate \u2013 and professional cycling is not immune. According to French Cofidis rider Guillaume Martin, the World Tour road race schedule may have to be changed to ensure that races, especially the three-week Grand Tours, will not endanger the health of riders and spectators due to extreme weather events caused by global warming. \u201cWe are experiencing a big, a very big problem,\u201d Martin told Reporterre. \u201cI especially remember the 2021 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. For several days, we rode through mind-blowing temperatures, especially in southern Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that Vuelta, Spain suffered the highest temperature ever recorded in the country, 47.4\u00b0C (117.3\u00b0F.) at Cordue. \u201cI remember one stage when my thermometer did not fall below 33 \u00b0C and we averaged 39 \u00b0C when we were climbing,\u201d Martin said. \u201cFor a moment, I wondered what I was doing there, making extreme efforts in extreme temperatures, while the authorities advised the population to stay at home with the shutters closed.\u201d Cycling fans will also remember stage 19 of the Tour de France of 2019 when the race was halted in a hailstorm and a landslide just before the final climb. More landslides led to the annulation of two climbs the following day. The race was also affected by a heat wave that saw temperatures climb over 40\u00b0C (60\u00b0C on the road!). Then-world champion Peter Sagan described conditions as suicidal and Steven Kruijswijk told reporters, \u201cI don\u2019t think this is healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"2022<\/a>
The 2022 La Vuelta saw temperatures climb over 60\u00b0C on the road. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few days later, flash flooding affected the Tour of Britain on the course where the UCI World Championships<\/a> were to be held later that year. And then torrential rain during those Championships led to sections of the scheduled route being eliminated from the Elite Men\u2019s Road Race. Yes, as the saying goes (more or less), bad weather happens but not as a regular feature of important sporting events. Guillaume Martin says that the schedule of races \u2013 especially of the Vuelta and the Tour de France, which take place in mid-summer \u2013 will need to be changed. \u201cVery concretely, in the world of cycling, this raises the question of the organization of races at certain times of the year,\u201d he said. \u201cI am not sure that the Tour de France can continue to be held in July. The health of riders and spectators depends on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As perhaps the first step in a sane direction, cycling\u2019s ruling body the UCI announced last week that it had found 80 signatories to its climate action charter,<\/a> including the organizers of the Tour de France and Giro d\u2019Italia, ASO and RCS Sport. Other founding signatories include Jumbo-Visma, Trek-Segafredo, and EF Education-EasyPost.<\/p>\n

The signatories commit themselves to \u201creducing our sport\u2019s impact on the environment and promoting the benefits of more cycle use for sustainable development.\u201d In addition, they \u201crecognize the crucial steps we must take to make our sport\u2019s rapid and deep emissions reductions possible by 2030.\u201c<\/p>\n

Furthermore, they confirm that global warming and the extreme events it causes, such as heatwaves, floods and droughts, \u201crisk the health and wellbeing of our athletes, spectators and workforce. We will work collaboratively to manage the impacts and lower the risks posed by the consequences of climate change in support of a climate adaptation strategy for our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Promising words. Let\u2019s hope they can live up to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate change is changing the world and the way we live in it. The failure of the participants of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":190316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329,334],"tags":[6774,6298,6773,4401,381,2226],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-191133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","category-socialising-and-culture","tag-cycling-and-climate-change","tag-ef-education-easypost","tag-grand-tour-racing","tag-guillaume-martin","tag-peter-sagan","tag-vuelta-a-espana","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\nClimate Change is Threatening Grand Tour Racing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Climate change is changing the world and the way we live in it. 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