Tour de Suisse - Stage 4, Schwarzenburg - Wettingen (192.2km)

[Barrus]

He's probably out of the tour himself so this season will be a wipe out, unless he can get it back together for the worlds.

Why would he be out of the tour? Do we have confirmation that he is injured?

At the picutre above me, that looks really strange, if I didn't know better I would say it was photoshopped

 

[Trond Vidar]

Hi, the photo is from Reuters.

Here's the article
http://www.vg.no/sport/sykkel/artikkel.php?artid=10001617

 

[mksndz]

Great shot Trond Vitar! Boonen looks like he knows something bad is about to happen.

Can anyone translate the comments in that interview?

 

[Trond Vidar]

Hushovs says that "Many in the field has reacted", but he has not seen it himself and does not want to give his opinion of the crash.

Haussler is on his feet, seems fine but is at a regular medical check.

Hushovd did not see Cav after he crashed.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Cavendish was penalised with 30 seconds by the organisers

 

[Faserr]

Just to make sure whose fault it is?

 

[Reverend_T_Preedy]

Blow it out your *** Padre...Cav pulled a suck move...to say he didn't is completely assinine...

Padre? F**k me, am I stuck in some lame Western film here?..... [edited by mod - insulting]

I haven't said it wasn't his fault by the way.

 

[tgsgirl]

Cavendish was penalised with 30 seconds by the organisers

Yeah, saw that. Hitting a sprinter where it hurts, that. Very brave.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Yeah, saw that. Hitting a sprinter where it hurts, that. Very brave.

Probably he has to pay some swiss francs as well, not that that matters

 

[djconnel]

pot......kettle......black?

There should be a variant of Godwin's Law for this.

 

[Boardslide]

"Cav rides into the back of Haussler................
........so, he was losing in anycase."

After seeing this I think it should be other way around also from Yahoo Eurosport : "I don't like winning this way, " Petacchi told reporters later. "If Cavendish hadn't crashed, for sure he'd have won."

Take it from someone who should know.

 

[tgsgirl]

QST's twitter says "News about Boonen: he was hit at his left knee, but will start tomorrow!"

 

[kurtinsc]

"Cav rides into the back of Haussler................
........so, he was losing in anycase."

After seeing this I think it should be other way around also from Yahoo Eurosport : "I don't like winning this way, " Petacchi told reporters later. "If Cavendish hadn't crashed, for sure he'd have won."

Take it from someone who should know.

Haussler may have been passing Cav... but Cav's front wheel would have to still be ahead of Haussler's in order for that image to be possible.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Fantastic photo

 

[131313]

"Cav rides into the back of Haussler................
........so, he was losing in anycase."

After seeing this I think it should be other way around also from Yahoo Eurosport : "I don't like winning this way, " Petacchi told reporters later. "If Cavendish hadn't crashed, for sure he'd have won."

Take it from someone who should know.

I don't think he "knows" that. I'm guessing HH has a different opinion... Cav had been sprinting for a lot longer and was running out of juice. It would have been photo-finish material, but I think HH would have taken it.

It looks pretty clear to me. Cav was running out of gas and he swept HH before the line. HH didn't move out of his way, and they crashed. You can't blame HH for riding straight. This is 100% on Cavendish. Let's face it, he's not used to guys coming up on him in a sprint, so he doesn't quite have the "subtle sweep" down like a lot of guys. Even if HH had moved wildly to his left to avoid the crash, Cav would have been DQ'd. That happens when you put guys into the barriers on EACH side of the road in the same 200 meters....

I didn't see any malevolence, just bad sprinting.

 

[Jamsque]

Seems like I missed a pretty dramatic finish today! Is there anything up on youtube yet?

 

[djconnel]

Photo of the year nominee. Incredible wheel dynamics....
And yes, a youtube link was just posted in the thread.

 

[kukiniloa]

Cav has trouble riding straight...

I don't think he "knows" that. I'm guessing HH has a different opinion... Cav had been sprinting for a lot longer and was running out of juice. It would have been photo-finish material, but I think HH would have taken it.

It looks pretty clear to me. Cav was running out of gas and he swept HH before the line. HH didn't move out of his way, and they crashed. You can't blame HH for riding straight. This is 100% on Cavendish. Let's face it, he's not used to guys coming up on him in a sprint, so he doesn't quite have the "subtle sweep" down like a lot of guys. Even if HH had moved wildly to his left to avoid the crash, Cav would have been DQ'd. That happens when you put guys into the barriers on EACH side of the road in the same 200 meters....

I didn't see any malevolence, just bad sprinting.

I doubt Cav would be so brash to cause a crash...but the move was clearly amateurish. Pros do make mistakes sometimes, I guess. We've all seen Cav crowd other sprinters before, and that may be what he was doing when he just lost control.

On video what happened is pretty clear, and I was disappointed that cyclingnews.com didn't have the balls to call it out.

 

[Mellow Velo]

I don't see that who caused the crash and who would have won as being mutually exclusive.
Whether Cav would, or would not have won, does not somehow shift the blame. He shoulders most, if not all of the responsibilty.
Deliberate? Definitely not.
Erratic? Certainly.

Maybe the fact that Cav was having to "mix it", rather than coming off his lead out train, played a part.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I didn't see any malevolence, just bad sprinting.

An element of desperation in the move across HH to try to stop him from winning. Frodo really wanted to win this one.

Frodo has sucked this season - the few races he has won have been against no-names. He finally gets a stage - with the big name rivals like Boonen, Petacchi, Friere etc racing. He goes for the sprint, he sees he is going to lose again and takes out HH.

 

[Andy99]

 

[Winterfold]

WTF is going on with the front wheel - Cav has had quite a few go on him this season hasn't he?

 

[Jamsque]

It looks like Cav's wheel buckled because Haussler's wheel went in to it, but I guess it's possible Cav had a spoke failure. I don't know if any of the video would be high quality enough that we could tell.

 

[Kwibus]

Watching the (fantastic) picture and the youtube video i'm pretty sure the wheel broke once it hit haussler.
Dramatic ending really. I sometimes can barely watch those bunch sprints because of these crashes.
Hopefully there ain't many serious injuries.

p.s. This ofcourse wasn't the intention of Cavendish. Who in the world wants to collide into another rider at 70km/h? Knowing there are 100 riders behind you racing at the same speed? It was his fault though

 

[pkreed71]

There should be a variant of Godwin's Law for this.

So are you saying that Cav is like Hitler because he's also short?