This is footage from the Presidential Tour of Turkey; the yellow jersey wearer is Daryl Impey. In the video you'll see what appears to be Dutch racer Theo Bos reaching out and pulling Impey down in the final kilometer of the race.
I, for one, wasn't aware that American football had that much of a following in the Netherlands, but it does appear that Bos has perfected the open field tackle, a la Troy Polamalu. Impey now needs to learn the stiff-arm.
Impey was awarded the win.
For more information see Velonews.com, where I found this clip. In his defense Bos is saying that his gaffling of Impey was inadvertent, but from the video it's hard to see that.
Be careful out there!
Why stand on a silent platform?
2 days ago
8 comments:
I watched a video that showed what was going on in the pack before the crash, and I think Bos was incredibly stupid but inadvertent.
The red rider in front of Impey had just lost the wheel in front of him and was drifting back, so Impey had moved around to the red guy's left. This closed out a tiny hole along the barrier that Bos was half way through. Instead of leaning into Impey and feathering his brakes to drop behind him, Bos tried to pull a trackie move of slingshotting Impey forward so that he could move over into Impey's former space. But that's a tricky move, and in the tight quarters it went south.
Bos should definitely be punished. I've got no idea what's appropriate. More than a month and less than a year?
Okay, I can see that. It seems like a pretty dicey maneuver -- you ever tried it? Everything looks a little worse in slow motion, too. Maybe I did the guy a disservice by posting that version of the vid.
Two months sounds reasonable, but to be honest I don't follow pro racing enough to know what the average punishment is. At least twice as long as Impey stays in the hospital, I think.
Tried it? Aw heck no! The rule is always to keep your hands on the bars in the sprint. Some refs will even DQ you for a victory salute. I have leaned into guys with the outside of my arms before, but that's rare. In that case, it's just like any contact sport: don't shy away from the contact but brace and lean into it.
The slingshot-move-gone-wrong sounds plausible but it doesn't explain why Bos wouldn't talk to Impey after the crash. Impey said Bos was a complete a$$ afterwards- didn't even apologize. Doesn't sound like a mistake to me...
What could Bos say to Impey? He knows he fucked up. Impey knows he fucked up. There's nothing to add. Bike racers are stoic like that, especially Dutch bike racers. Well, not the Italians. They'd be weeping all over the pavement.
Bos hasn't said he's innocent; he's said he didn't do it on purpose. When he says that he "panicked," that's an admission of guilt. Every racer knows that panicking is what you must never ever ever do in a pack.
Honestly, the claim that Bos did it on purpose makes no sense. Even beginner racers know two things about contacting another racer: get your handlebars in front of his and protect your front wheel. The idea that Bos would intentionally pull a racer in front of him into his own front wheel just doesn't add up. Bos has raced on the track and in Belgian kermesses. I'm sure he knows how to take someone out if he wants to, and that's not it.
I'll buy Sir Curveship's logic on the cause(s) of this crash. It's nice to have a sympathetic sprinter's insight on these matters.
What could Bos have said?! Two simple words: "Sorry, dude."
Being man enough to say "My bad" is pretty high in my book. It's also apparently pretty high with Impey.
As I noted, your reasoning makes sense. It looks like Bos just compounded his mistake by trying to run from it.
And Michael Boogerd- stoic? He whined more than I do.
Ah, but did he whine more than Bergeler? Now that is a question for the ages. ;)
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