Simpson, Casartelli, Tondo… and Mäder, the last of a tragic and extensive list
Another cyclist who dies in competition, in “combat”. Another victim of a job that is always difficult, often dangerous and sometimes cruel. Mortal, in its most extreme degree of hardness, risk and cruelty. This time tragedy has knocked on the door of Gino Mäder, a 26-year-old Swiss runner.
Mäder suffered a brutal fall, on Thursday, in the fifth stage of the Tour of Switzerland, during the descent of the Abulapass, when, also risking his life, Juan Ayuso was flying at 100 kilometers per hour towards victory. He fell unconscious at the wet bottom of a ravine. They tried to revive him on the spot and he was airlifted to Chur hospital. He survived the night, but a few hours later, he passed away. In Switzerland, in his country, his cradle and his grave.
More cyclists die than climbers. And what motorcycle and Formula 1 drivers. And what bullfighters. It is true that cyclists are more numerous than bullfighters. But they don't have half a ton of hostile beast in front of them, armed with horns like razors. The bullfighter protects himself with deception. Cyclists, with nothing. In any case, with their skill and with luck, when they have it. They also lose their lives competing and training. Or they are about to, like Cris Froome or Egan Bernal.
The strange, the abnormal, the miraculous is that no more irremediable misfortunes happen. These men are perched on increasingly lighter, more schematic, more concise machines. They look like riders in the air. Rolling sheets of rolling paper. They ride on a thread, on an edge…. razor. They are the body, the bumper.
The list of victims is endless and of all times; and the reasons, various. It affects great champions, middle-class runners and gregarious, all equal in fatality: Serse Coppi, Ottavio Botecchia, Stan Ockers, Tom Simpson, Fabio Casartelli, Andrei Kivilev, Wouter Weylandt, Bjorg Lambrecht, Michele Scarponi…. And many Spaniards: Francisco Cepeda, Francisco Alomar, José Luis Talamillo, Valentín Uriona, Manuel Galera, Juan Manuel Santisteban, Antonio Martín, Manuel Sanroma, Ricardo Otxoa, Xavier Tondo, Isaac Gálvez (at a velodrome), etc., etc.
Professional since 2018 in the ranks of Dimension Data, Mäder had been hired in 2021, until this 2023, by Bahrain Victorious. He had seven victories, including, in 2021, a stage in the Giro and another in, again in his life, the Tour of Switzerland. Also in 2021 he finished fifth in the Vuelta a España and won the youth jersey. He still had a long career path ahead of him.. But it is already known that death ends what you are and what you could become.
This Friday, in tribute to Mäder, the participants in the Tour of Switzerland only contested and neutralized the last 20 kilometers of the sixth stage. “This is how we will always remember you, with a big smile on your face… We run for you, Gino,” the organization said through its account on the social network Twitter, accompanying its text with a black and white photo of Mäder.