Like a bunch of tweenage girls!
A case of real bad luck hit Andy Schleck on Stage 15. If you’ve been living under a rock then you haven’t heard that Andy’s chain got wonked up and Alberto Contador zoomed ahead. The end result was Alberto taking the yellow jersey off of Andy and putting it on his own back. Andy dropped from having a 31 second lead to having an 8 second deficit. The cycling community was set ablaze with questions of Andy’s “revenge” and we pondered the question: should Alberto have waited for Andy?
Here’s my thoughts, for what it’s worth.
Bike racing is a job with financial rewards. You do what you must to win. After all, who wants to sponsor a rider to lose? It’s that mentality that fuels the doping culture in the sport. However, bike racing is also steeped with precedent, culture, and respect. You don’t kick a man when he’s down and that has applied to the yellow jersey. Who can forget Lance Armstong’s crash on Stage 15 during the 2003 TdF? Lance’s handlebars were caught in the strings of a musette bag and he went down pretty hard. The tailgating Iban Mayo rode over Lance and fell down too. Jan Ullrich, who was not too far behind Iban, barely managed to swerve around the crash. Like Andy, Lance was “disabled” so to speak. It was a sloppy crash but he went down (I always thought he should have been riding closer to the center of the road).
Question: should everyone have waited for Lance or should they have continued like Alberto?
Here’s what happened.
Jan did not attack.
Jan did not accelerate.
Jan waited!
More than that, Tyler Hamilton waved his hands to the front group to signal that the yellow jersey went down. Translation: you slow down!
Lance was certainly what I would call the great Padrone of the Tour. He was a champion and he owned the Tour after his previous four consecutive Tour wins. Without a doubt, Lance commanded respect. You simply did not cross him.
Alberto, in the case of Andy on Stage 15 this year, chose a different path. He mounted an attack and continued. I’m not sure how much he looked back except to see that Andy was not behind him. With race radios as prevalent as they are today, I really doubt that Alberto had no idea what was going on. Alberto could have slowed and waited. He could have waved his hands like Tyler. Alberto could have nullified the attacks. He could have at least tried. I think if he had tried then other riders would have responded. Although he is young, he is still a champion of sorts.
From the limited video that I saw, Alberto’s victory will go down in controversy. There may not be an asterisk by his name like Bjarne Riis. but what he did was not heroic. So what if they kissed and made up? That’s what little kids do. They fight, the squabble, they hurt each other, and then the parents tell them to apologize.
Hopefully Alberto will grow, mature, and step into the role of a great champion.
