In cycling, the fast lane brings danger

Weylandt was the 10th professional cyclist to die in a crash during a road race since Fabio Casartelli, an Olympic gold medalist, was killed at the Tour de France in 1995. Most of the other deaths, with the exception of Andrei Kivilev's during the Paris-Nice season opener in 2003, came in less-prominent races and attracted relatively little attention.

The growing danger in professional cycling is not limited to fatalities.

The sport does not keep accident statistics, but riders and cycling officials agree that the number and severity of race accidents have escalated significantly in recent years.

"There are a lot more dangers than 20 years ago," said Pat McQuaid, the president of the cycling union, which is more commonly known by the initials of its name in French, UCI. "But you can't compare a death in a cycling accident and an NFL player going into a tackle and not coming up. In the Weylandt case, it was an accident out of the blue."

"When I started racing, they told me that crashes are part of the contract," said Marco Pinotti, a prominent Italian rider who broke his pelvis in another crash in this year's Giro and was hospitalized for several weeks. "This is a dangerous sport, and it will always be a dangerous sport. But I think in the last few years, it looks like crashes have increased and become more severe because the speed is higher, the technology of the bikes has changed, and the level and size of the peloton is higher, much higher."

Pinotti, who became a professional 12 years ago, is now recovered and made his comeback this month in Quebec and in Montreal, the only North American races that are part of the UCI World Tour, which also includes the Tour de France and the Giro.

Craig Lewis, Pinotti's teammate and another Giro crash victim, has been less fortunate. Speaking from his home in South Carolina, Lewis said that he had regained only 75 percent to 80 percent of his usual form and that he probably faces additional surgery on a leg he broke in the crash. He did, however, finish the USA Pro Cycling Challenge last month in Colorado.

Pinotti and Lewis were brought down by a common problem. In a bid to slow auto traffic, towns, cities and villages throughout Europe have narrowed roads near their entrances, added speed bumps and introduced islands and traffic circles. In the Giro, Pinotti and Lewis came around a corner on a descent and struck a small metal pole on an island in the middle of the road.

But Mauro Vegni, then the race director for the Giro organizer, RCS Sport, issued a statement saying, "Where Weylandt lost control of the bike and fell, there were no obstacles, there were no vehicles stationary or moving, and the road surface had no defects or irregularities." Vegni added that riders' statements to the police indicated that as Weylandt looked backward on a downhill, his pedal hit a wall beside the road, apparently causing his spill.