Zurich, 2 Nov 2024 – The cycling world mourns the loss of Muriel Furrer. The 18-year-old Swiss rider crashed heavily in a wooded area during the junior women’s race at the Road Cycling World Championships in Zurich. She succumbed to her injuries a day later. The exact cause of the crash is still unclear and investigations are ongoing.
‘The investigations by the responsible authorities are underway,’ Swiss Cycling stated immediately after the accident. But nothing more. The fact that the seriously injured Muriel Furrer was not found for a long time – it took 2.5 hours for the helicopter to fly her to hospital – is inexcusable.
The organisers’ communication after the accident was very reserved, not to say passive. They constantly emphasised that the ongoing investigations by the public prosecutor’s office and the police should be awaited. This approach was inappropriate and wrong.
Basic rules of crisis communication:
1) Those responsible must inform the public quickly and transparently:
What is known about the course of the accident, what is not or not yet known?
2) As soon as new information becomes known, it is imperative that information is provided again.
3) If information is provided too late and not comprehensively, the impression is created that something is being kept under wraps. This opened the door to some wild speculation.
Although investigations were still underway in the hours after the accident, those responsible for the World Cycling Championships have to accept the question of why no immediate measures were taken to protect the riders based on the initial findings.These include, for example, better monitoring of the field of riders, the immediate tracking of every rider – including the juniors – or the deployment of more personnel in the confusing forest section.
NZZ: „Dass die schwer verletzte Muriel Furrer am Strassenrand so lange …
Watson: Jetzt bricht der oberste Rennfahrer sein Schweigen zum Tod von Muriel Furrer
