Men's Road Cycling UCI World Tour 2020

[Olympian1010 7,976]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

I wonder how many people voluntarily go and watch that knowing his life is still in danger. The TV director showing replays (multiple, from all kinds of angles) within minutes, while there were and still are fears for his life, was just disgusting. That person needs to be fired, if you don't know how to do a job (and it is a rather universal thing in sports to not show these kind of replays until more is known about someone's condition), do something else.

So the UCI punishing the rider who caused the accident is an overreaction, but being outraged the TV Director showed the accident isn’t?

 

I’m not trying to defend anyone, but let’s not attack the TV Director for doing their job. I’m certain he (or she) knew just about as much as we did about the condition of the riders involved. Also, these crashes at the finish are somewhat commonplace in cycling, and this on par with the coverage I’ve seen of similar incidents. I’m actually thankful they showed the crash from a couple of angles, because I can actually understand the circumstances of the crash.

[Olympian1010 7,976]

Gronevegen‘s behavior wasn’t egregious or abnormal, until he gave that final little elbow. That’s what really pisses me off. That contact was purposefully malicious. It would be one thing if he moved over to block the other and it ended there, but forcing the other rider to the barrier and then finishing him off with the elbow is completely unacceptable.

[Vektor 3,326]

19 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

So the UCI punishing the rider who caused the accident is an overreaction, but being outraged the TV Director showed the accident isn’t?

 

I’m not trying to defend anyone, but let’s not attack the TV Director for doing their job. I’m certain he (or she) knew just about as much as we did about the condition of the riders involved. Also, these crashes at the finish are somewhat commonplace in cycling, and this on par with the coverage I’ve seen of similar incidents. I’m actually thankful they showed the crash from a couple of angles, because I can actually understand the circumstances of the crash.

 

The TV director knew the same thing any sane person knew at the moment they saw this on the live feed: either someone has already died or is in critical conditions because this was an incredibly severe crash at high speed. Which means that they shouldn't replay it because they have the obligation to not make a TV spectacle out of what can easily be a fatal incident. 

[Monzanator 4,503]

Poland isn't as sensitive when it comes to showing potentially fatal accidents in sports. You can still find some of the speedway footage from the 90s with numerous fatal accidents on youtube (not that anyone cares about speedway to begin with).

[heywoodu 15,141]

10 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

So the UCI punishing the rider who caused the accident is an overreaction

 

No, you're understanding me wrong there. What I meant was that the UCI's reaction, within two or three hours after the crash, was filled with emotion and anger, you can sense the adrenaline the writer of it had. That's understandable, but I'd expect a federation to wait a little, at least go through the common decency of talking to both sides (in this case probably represented by their teams) and then releasing a statement.

 

I am in no way defending Groenewegen's move there, I thought I had made that abundantly clear.

[heywoodu 15,141]

10 hours ago, Vektor said:

 

The TV director knew the same thing any sane person knew at the moment they saw this on the live feed: either someone has already died or is in critical conditions because this was an incredibly severe crash at high speed. Which means that they shouldn't replay it because they have the obligation to not make a TV spectacle out of what can easily be a fatal incident. 

Yep, although it's not as bad as the Giro d'Italia director after Wouter Weylandt's fatal crash, where they brought live footage from the helicopter above where you saw blood gushing out of his head (minutes after the crash, it wasn't an accidental image). But come on, have some sense.

[heywoodu 15,141]

Meanwhile Patrick Lefevere has basically called for Groenewegen to be arrested for attempted murder. Which, bad as Groenewegen's move was, is just idiotic to begin with - not in the last place because this happens so often in sprints, luckily almost never with these consequences, and when Lefevere's own riders do it and people get angry at them, he basically just tells everyone to shut up and 'this is part of racing' (which it shouldn't be).

[Federer91 2,796]

10 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

 

I’m not trying to defend anyone, but let’s not attack the TV Director for doing their job. I’m certain he (or she) knew just about as much as we did about the condition of the riders involved. Also, these crashes at the finish are somewhat commonplace in cycling, and this on par with the coverage I’ve seen of similar incidents. I’m actually thankful they showed the crash from a couple of angles, because I can actually understand the circumstances of the crash.

 

Agreed. Not a fan of the sporting policy of hiding the images, whether it's cycling, motorsport, football etc.  It happened live, everyone saw it, they can't undo it.  It's not like they were showing a grotesque close ups on the injured people. It was a replay of what led to the accident. Like you said, better to have an understanding of the circumstances, then to hide it and we get the same thing next month/year. 

[heywoodu 15,141]

Generally one waits until more is known about the condition of the involved people. I've seen plenty of very bad crashes both in cycling and motorsports, where replays were only done once the involved athletes were at the very least sort of ok.

[heywoodu 15,141]

Anyhow, back to the main thing: apparently Jakobsen has had a five hour surgery overnight. There seems to be no brain damage, which is the most significant bit of news, and they're going to try and get him out of the coma today - hopefully that will indeed show a lack of brain damage.

 

There are worries about the chest area (meaning the words of the race doctor of last night can be taken with a grain of salt, I believe she said there is no damage there), where significant damage is causing respitory problems. As a non-expert, that does sound like something that's easier to treat than brain damage though.

 

For now things sound a little more positive than last night, although the situation still is definitely very serious.