Tour of Britain Women organizer reviews Maeve Plouffe safety incident

Tour of Britain Women organizer British Cycling Ventures is reviewing an incident in which Australian rider Maeve Plouffe says she was nearly struck by a car during Wednesday’s opening stage. The Guardian reported that the encounter happened while Plouffe was trying to regain contact with the peloton after suffering a puncture.

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Plouffe, a 27-year-old who rides for O’Shea Red Chilli Bikes, said the race convoy remained visible and she was less than two minutes behind the main field when vehicles belonging to members of the public approached from different directions. According to her account, one car nearly hit her at a roundabout. She later received a motorcycle escort and said that made her feel safer.

Jonathan Day, events director at British Cycling Ventures, said in a statement reported by the BBC and the Guardian that the organization was treating Plouffe’s comments with the utmost seriousness. Day said rider safety is central to the planning and operation of its races. The organizer is now reviewing the episode with Plouffe and her O’Shea Red Chilli Bikes team. No conclusion from that review had been announced at the time of the report.

The complaint comes at a particularly sensitive time for professional cycling. The Guardian noted that 19-year-old British rider Finlay Tarling died the previous week after colliding with a vehicle that had entered the course during the eighth stage of the Volta a Portugal. Plouffe referred to the recent tragedy when explaining why her experience caused concern, while stopping short of claiming that the two incidents were identical.

Thursday’s second stage of the Tour of Britain Women was also interrupted by a separate road traffic accident ahead of the peloton. The race was neutralized for nearly an hour, the Guardian reported, before Lorena Wiebes won the rain-affected stage. The Dutch rider had also taken victory on the opening day. The report described that interruption as unrelated to Plouffe’s experience.

The immediate focus is therefore on the organizer’s fact-finding process: how public traffic reached a rider who was still chasing behind the race convoy, what protections were in place at that point, and whether procedures need to change. British Cycling Ventures has confirmed the review but has not yet published findings or announced any operational changes. Plouffe’s account remains the basis of the reported near-collision, and the available reporting does not identify the driver or establish why the vehicle was on the roundabout.