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 sh
t 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.