Jonas Vingegaard’s training crash is the sort of nonsense the internet is made for: lots of shouting, lots of people who are very sure their perspective is DEFINITELY RIGHT. Except they’re not.
This column is going to be a bit different. It’s not a bunch of stuff I’ve heard or seen, it’s just my thoughts on something that happened today. Might get a bit ranty.
You’ve seen it by now, I’m sure. Jonas Vingegaard, Tour de France champ, crashed descending in Spain. His team asked fans to give riders space, and the guy behind him, named Pedro, according to Strava, posted about the experience.
He wrote a bunch of stuff, but this part stood out to me:
“I respect Jonas like any other cyclist who’s training, and just because he’s won two Tours and a Vuelta doesn’t mean he should be respected more than any other cyclist. And I can stick to him like glue because it’s my right and nothing prohibits it.”
Apparently, a bloody-faced Vingegaard stood up and was pretty terse with Pedro, according to another guy on Strava who was on the scene. The amateurs asked if Jonas needed help, and he said no, angrily.
This is the sort of nonsense that the internet was made for, right? Lots of shouting, lots of people who are very sure their perspective is DEFINITELY RIGHT. Funny thing, though, is that nobody’s right here. Everyone looks a bit of an idiot, in my opinion.
Jonas wasn’t taken out by the fan; the guy was behind him. Jonas is a pro bike rider. If guys riding behind him were enough to make him crash, he’d be pretty bad at his job. I would have made him crash many times! I’ve seen that tiny butt up close mid-race, and somehow he stayed upright. My guess is Jonas was more mad at himself than anything, because crashing sucks and he knows, deep down, it was his own fault. He lashed out at the fan guys because he knows he could have just jeopardized his whole season. He let himself get riled up by some dude riding behind him. That, dear readers, is not very pro, and he knows it.
So Jonas didn’t cover himself in glory. But, he’s not wrong.
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