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Tour de Pologne 2020

Page 15 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
He has said a lot... by saying nothing. Thijs is usually the first to sprint towards his phone or computer at the slightest inconvenience, and now there's crickets. He always looked more like a PR-machine for Dumoulin, but with the development of Jumbo's programme over the last few years, it would seem he has shifted his focus toward them. The most compelling thing he has expressed about this incident is that ''Groenewegens actions are perhaps over the line, I think'', only to write this abomination of an article last night, in which he defends Groenewegen, somehow? You can tell he is scared shitless of having to express critique, otherwise he'd maybe lose a source, lose a quote or perhaps lose someone to have on his podcast. You just know he'd scream for someone to be hanged if, say, Andrea Vendrame was yesterday's culprit. No credibility whatsoever.
He’s always had issues with Patrick Lefevere. He can’t help himself.
I always find it odd that journalists and other people not directly involved with a situation need to judge emotional reactions of those that are involved. Whether it’s a race situation or something horrible like this. Imagine being a bystander and witnessing a friend seeing his friend being pushed (by accident) down a mountain. The guy screams what a criminal he is being in shock of what just happened and you just tell him in front of everyone who witnessed it that it’s wrong for him to say that.
Like i said he can’t stand PL and he couldn’t help himself.
 
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He’s always had issues with Patrick Lefevere. He can’t help himself.
I always find it odd that journalists and other people not directly involved with a situation need to judge emotional reactions of those that are involved. Whether it’s a race situation or something horrible like this. Imagine being a bystander and witnessing a friend seeing his friend being pushed (by accident) down a mountain. The guy screams what a criminal he is being in shock of what just happened and you just tell him in front of everyone who witnessed it that it’s wrong for him to say that.
Like i said he can’t stand PL and he couldn’t help himself.

He just released a twitter thread as a reaction to Lefevere's statements concerning criminal measures: View: https://twitter.com/thijszonneveld/status/1291288366160523270


His conclusion is that Groenewegen most likely will be suspended for a long time (weeks? months?) and that according to him a suspension is highly justified. He does however keep referring to other cases like Veelers-Cavendish.

I guess it's something at least...
 
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I'm not so optimistic. If your whole face is basically smashed in, you will have lasting damage. There are a lot of nerves running there, a lot of things that could be affected they don't know yet.

It looked so bad that I think having it "just" be a career ending crash would be a positive. Someone - or maybe several someones - wrote that they hope this won't be Jakobsen's last victory, but honestly... I'd be okay with that. As long as it's a victory he can look back on.
 
Could be. Most people seem to think he'll only be banned for the remainder of the season. I'm guessing they'll go with a more severe punishment.

With most likely a longer suspension and the guilt, he is done. He wont be back at this level. He need time off and to get right. His mind must be a mess right now. He will have to do deal with that, take the accountability and take whatever punishment he receives.

Praying Jacobsen dont wake up with brain damage or something from his coma. Horrific situation.
 
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With most likely a longer suspension and the guilt, he is done. He wont be back at this level. He need time off and to get right. His mind must be a mess right now. He will have to do deal with that, take the accountability and take whatever punishment he receives.
This requires him to think like you/us, which is probably mutually exclusive with riding like that in the first place.
 
Praying Jacobsen dont wake up with brain damage or something from his coma. Horrific situation.

Even if he does, hopefully he can still recover somewhat. After all; Stig Broeckx seems to be doing quite okay, all things considered...


This requires him to think like you/us, which is probably mutually exclusive with riding like that in the first place.

That's assuming he doesn't have a conscience. Seems like some sprinters have this thing where they'll be perfectly decent people off the bike, and during the quiet parts of a race, but when they see a finish line something just... snaps...
 
Well if some minor doping violation can get you 2 year ban then this kind of behavior surely have to result in AT LEAST the same penalty...
That wouldn't be consistent with previous bans for dirty sprinting, though.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8K_7bJQaaI


^ This stunt only lead to a one month ban.

I do think a MUCH longer suspension is to be expected though. The outcome obviously matters a whole lot (even if some / many think it should be irrelevant).

Also, the UCI will want to put the blame almost entirely on Groenewegen. Of course, he's the only one responsible for the crash, the move seemed deliberate - gotta agree with Lefevere here - but the UCI and the organizers of the Tour of Poland share some of the responsibility re: Jakobsen's injuries, IMO.
 
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First of all, that was truly awful. Really hoping for the best for Fabio Jakobsen. Much strength to him and his family.
This shows the UCI clearly didn’t have to apologize for the Sagan-Cavendish incident. You don’t apologize when misbehavior occur.
It seems early to start debating this but since punishment is forthcoming I will put my 2 cents. I agree with you that in hindsight it was right that Sagan was disqualified. These sprint moves are very dangerous and should be dealt with harshly.

But I disagree with not needing to "apologize" for punishment whenever there is misbehavior. I think there needs to be some consistency, and that punishment should fit the action, not the consequence.

I think this move by Bouhanni over Matthews in Stage 2 of Paris Nice 2016 was actually worse than either of those (3:10):


As it was a slower sprint, Nacer had plenty of time to see Bling coming. He not only elbowed Matthews but rammed him into the fencing. Matthews only held it up by the skin of his teeth, and if he had not anticipated it and stopped pedaling a split-second before Nacer leaned into him. It's possible being aware of Bouhanni's reputation actually saved Matthews from a serious crash.

Yet Nacer was only relegated. Meanwhile, Sagan, who was going for a gap, not closing the door, and most likely didn't actually elbow Cavendish but got his handlebars tangled, got disqualified. This was just a year later, and for a rider who didn't have quite as long a history of incidents.

What Groenewegen did was more akin to Bouhanni's than Sagan's move, but as a sporting action, I would insist that it wasn't as bad as what Bouhanni did to Matthews. Yesterday it was a far faster sprint in which they were side by side for far less time, Groenewegen had less time to see Jakobsen and position himself, and he "only" elbowed Jacobsen. Which is terrible, but not as bad as elbowing him and then pressing him into the siding. Yet the UCI came out for sanctions already, and it seems like his punishment will be far worse than Bouhanni's. Which maybe it should be, but then the referees really should start punishing everyone for all these sorts of moves and coming down just as hard on the worst of them, whatever the consequences.

I don't think it has much if anything to do with it being four years ago and nothing to do the ASO (who doesn't set the punishments) wanting to favor a French rider. At the end of the day, Bouhanni got away with it because Matthews got out of it unscathed. And I just think that's a terrible way to adjudicate these things and an even worse way to disincentivize bad behavior.
 
Also, how hard is to put some kind of soft barriers in the final 500m? Even haystacks would be better than those metal fences...

Nobody has that amount of haystacks lying around.

Those barriers are used for many purposes, they are easily transported and stacked, relatively light and readily available.

So I'd say it's quite hard, but maybe worth thinking about anyway.
 
It's always a huge shock to see or read of incidents and injuries like yesterdays. I guess it's cycling and it's part of the game and injuries happen and yada yada but this just felt so preventable. There are so many things that shouldn't have happened like they did, not just talking of Groenewegens behavior, and I think after everyone's health the next most important thing right now is that cycling finally learns from the mistakes that have been made.

Because you know, it's not the first time a sprinter changes his line in a bunch sprint and pushes someone into the barrier. Often people crash, usually they aren't as severely injured as Jakobsen and most of the time there is just no crash at all because these sprinters are phenomenal bike handlers. The simple fact that it's possible for riders to have a reputation for doing something that dangerous, that life threatening, and still being looked upon as a relatively uncontroversial athlete, often as a sports hero, is ridiculous and it's only possible because these sort of moves aren't sanctioned harder. Right after watching the footage from yesterday I could immediately think of numerous occasions when a sprinter had somehow stayed upright despite being pushed close to the barrier and all of those instances could have ended just like yesterdays.

But then nobody crashed so the next day everyone had already forgotten about it.

But it's not just dangerous movements in the sprint that are responsible for yesterday. If that's an uphill sprint and Jakobsen crashes into the barrier it's still bad and he might still get injured but the outcome would have been nowhere near as dramatic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for every sprint to be uphill, I just think someone with half a working eye could have seen how dangerous yesterday's finish was and how easily it could have been avoided. Just don't make bunch sprint stages where the finish is downhill, just don't finish on a straight where there are rails next to the barrier. As if the entire town of Katowice didn't have a single street more suited to a sprint finish. Bullsh*t. It's just that some organizer thought that place would look good on TV cameras, or that there was a certain spot where they thought a sponsors logo would look really neat. That stuff just mustn't have priority, but it does, and it has for years and seemingly nobody is questioning it. Every year there are races where the last kilometer of a flat stage is ridiculously twisty or where a day before the stage someone posts a picture on twitter showing how dangerous crashing in a certain corner could be. And every time there are some rider protests that get ignored and people like us write meaningless forum posts criticizing the race organizers.

But then nobody crashes so the next day everyone has already forgotten about it.

This just has to stop. The UCI cannot give sprinters leeway because the outcome isn't catastrophic. The next time Nacer Bouhanni does something like this I don't want him to just lose his stage win and be relegated to the back of the group, I want him out of the race. I don't want riders to benefit from dangerous riding anymore and if the sprinters know the only thing changing your line gets you is a DQ and a big fine, they'll stop doing it. But right now they know as long as the other guy stays upright they might keep their win or at worst get relegated with no further consequence.

And when it comes to dangerous routes, the organizers as well as the UCI have to get their sht together. LS mentioned the Pais Vasco sprint stage with the bollards and I'm sure the organizers faced consequences and what not, but holy sht how on earth did that stage ever get started. And the next time the organizer of a race willingly risks the riders lives by not making their route save, don't just ride the stage anyway. Don't just hope nobody will crash so everyone forgets about that one time the route you were responsible for could have had horrible consequences but ultimately didn't. I know cycling is dangerous by nature, but some dangers are so easily preventable. Nobody is gonna complain if you don't have high speed downhill sprints. Nobody is gonna complain if there are no sprints with rails next to the barriers. Stuff like cobbles or twisty descents cannot just be erased from cycling because many riders would consider these sections their strengths but no sprinter is gonna have "sprints really well next to rails you really don't want to crash on" written on his wikipedia page. These sort of dangers are preventable and the only reason they aren't prevented already is because of stuff that shouldn't matter one tiny bit next to the riders health.

Man idk, events like yesterday's just make me sad. Just needed to get that off my chest.
 
Don't know if we have some football fans here, but some of them might be aware of Andreas Reinke. Someone was running at him at full speed and the opponent hit Reinkes (goalkeeper) face with his knee. Maybe a bit similar to how Cechs injury happened, just that he took it directly to the face instead of the head). He had countless broken bones in his face. They managed to reconstruct his face like it was before, but he wasn't the same. Lost the sense of taste and smell and still suffers from chronic headache and vertigo.
 
Thoughts and Prayers with Fabio and his family.

I have a question. people saying the organisers and the UCI need to look att the finish. What is different about this finish to other finishing straights at every event? Forget the tram line that run alongside. From watching on pictures they were not involved in the crash. He was pushed into the barriers, the bike flipped up he went straight over the barrier into the poor guy stood next to the finishing overhead and looked like he either hit the upright that holds the finishing barrier up or was tangled in the barriers?

What was different to this setup than other setups?

Why can they not use inflatable finishing line? like they do at the flamme rouge? it seems like the structure is a scaffold structure? Also could they not use plastic crowd control barriers? or not have barriers at all and ban crowds from the final 250m of sprint finishes? then they could just use a tape or rope to designate the course?
 
For this old head Groenewegen's reckless behavior was nothing unusual:

View: https://twitter.com/mcewenrobbie/status/1291218656832061442


A "correct DQ" but that was the end of it. I disagree. Of course, McEwen wasn't exactly a saint, even by yesterday's sprinters standards.

Likeable guy though, unlike Groenewegen, IMO, so I'll refrain from commenting on the appropriate punishment - as I'm biased against him.
It was a correct DQ. I mostly agree with Robbie in that Groenewegen was simply closing the door, something you're taught to do in a sprint from day one, but Groenewegen should have stopped as soon as he realised how far up Jakobsen was.

Following through with the move was totally wrong and I have no issues with Groenewegen getting a suspension. Having said that, I still think things like Bos' actions on Impey in Turkey, Steels' bottle throwing, Cav's wipe out of Haussler and Bouhanni's near wipeout of Matthews had more malice
 
Thoughts and Prayers with Fabio and his family.

I have a question. people saying the organisers and the UCI need to look att the finish. What is different about this finish to other finishing straights at every event? Forget the tram line that run alongside. From watching on pictures they were not involved in the crash. He was pushed into the barriers, the bike flipped up he went straight over the barrier into the poor guy stood next to the finishing overhead and looked like he either hit the upright that holds the finishing barrier up or was tangled in the barriers?

What was different to this setup than other setups?

Why can they not use inflatable finishing line? like they do at the flamme rouge? it seems like the structure is a scaffold structure? Also could they not use plastic crowd control barriers? or not have barriers at all and ban crowds from the final 250m of sprint finishes? then they could just use a tape or rope to designate the course?

The issue with the finish line is that it's downhill.
As for using inflatable finish line (almost wrote inflamable, which... I think would be a really bad idea...) well... don't know if you've noticed, but those aren't exactly 100% safe either, just remember the Adam Yates incident in the Tour a few years back.
 

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