A True Hero...

[endlessrarities]

Johnny Hoogerland of Team Rabobank, you're the hero of the day.

Knocked off your bike into a barbed wire fence, you pick yourself up, get back on your bike and struggle on to the end of the stage.  And yet you remain sufficiently gracious to shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, hey, these things happen,' before you get carted off to hospital for 30 odd stitches. 

You deserve that polka-dot jersey, mate.  You really do.

Even the Spartans would be proud of you.  And that's saying something!

Comments

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

Who was the swine who knocked him off?

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I think technically speaking it may have been Juan Antonio Flecha, who got hit by a French TV car that swerved right into him and knocked him for six. Hoogerland was sent flying when Flecha and bike cannoned into him and wound up getting thrown into a barbed wire fence.

Poor old Flecha made it to the end, but he wasn't talking to the press and Dave Brailsford of Sky was clearly not a happy bunny...

It was a seriously inept piece of driving, but Hoogerland just seemed glad that he and Flecha were still alive. If he'd been sent into the fencepost, it might have been a different matter...

[goddessofchaos.livejournal.com]

I know, he was amazing! I didn't expect him to get back on the bike at all after that crash, never mind make it to the finish! What a year it's been for crashes so far. People are doing down like nine-pins every day. Of course, it doesn't help when people hit them with cars, or motorbikes...

[basefinder.livejournal.com]

Wow, he sounds like a tough one!

I didn't see this crash but it seems like a lot of them happening this year.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

It's always bad in the first week, because everyone's really jittery, but this year seems to be worse than most.