Female cyclists 50% more likely to be injured in crashes and suffer 2.5 times more fractures, new UCI study finds

September 24, 2026

During the UCI’s annual Congress at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal on Wednesday, Medical Director Xavier Bigard presented the results of a survey of the causes of crashes in the men’s and women’s WorldTour pelotons, and pointed to some alarming differences between the injuries suffered.

The survey began with Paris-Nice this year, and sought to find the incidence and type of injuries being sustained, correlate the causes of crashes with the severity of injury and, as a result of the analysis, identify risk factors with the aim of finding preventative measures.

The study examined 21 men’s races (90 days) and 14 women’s events (37 days) or 12,951 men’s rider-race days and 4,381 women’s rider-race days.

“The main takeaway from this slide, which shows crash incidence rates, is that crashes occurring in women’s races involve more riders than in men’s races,” Bigard said during his presentation, pointing to a slide that showed that in the women’s peloton, crashes involved an average of 4.7 riders compared with 2.7 for men.

“The second finding is that during these crashes, the number of medical interventions is consistently higher in women’s races than in men’s.” CYCLINGNEWS