The joy of winning a professional bike race is one few ever get to experience, a feeling reserved for the most talented, hard-working and genetically gifted. So when your big moment comes you've just got to hope something like this doesn't happen...
Poor Luis Carlos Chía won the sprint on Vuelta a Colombia's third stage, taking the win in torrential rain in Monteria which left much of the final kilometre and finishing area submerged. However, his win won't be remembered for the perfect timing of his sprint, pipping Óscar Adalberto Quiroz on the line, but instead because of what happened next...
Chía took his hands off the bars to beat his chest and salute the crowd...our next TV pictures from Señal Deportes show the Supergiros - ALC Manizales rider lying on the aforementioned soaked tarmac alongside an unfortunate spectator.
The unfortunate spectator? His wife...
Thankfully, El Tiempo reports both escaped relatively unscathed, although Claudia Roncancio — herself a photographer — was taken to hospital where she needed four stitches.
Chía, who also won the first stage, appeared in decent spirits as he hobbled towards the podium to receive his stage winner's prize and leader's jersey.
Speaking afterwards the stage winner said his brakes had not worked properly in the wet conditions: "Today I wanted to brake and the brakes blocked up, and I went straight into her."
"That's the area for photographers. It could have been her or anyone else. I was coming at high speed. The other day it was the same but that day it hadn't rained and my brakes worked perfectly."
Stage-winning celebration crashes are surprisingly common at pro races...
Fellow Colombian rider Edisón Muñoz crashed while celebrating a win in his home country back in 2020 after hitting a rather unfriendly bump in the road.
At least Muñoz got the win. Poor Eduard Prades thought he'd won. Celebrated. Snapped his saddle. Fell. And then got told there was an attacker up the road and he'd finished second...
And how about last year's UAE Tour where Trek-Segafredo's Antonio Tiberi crashed across the finish line during the time trial?
Correction - the Tory Govt is doing sweet fa afaik. The Scots and Welsh devolved Govts have projects. The English one run is by a think tank...
Is it that only one of them spent £850m of the Treasury's money to increase Covid-19 infections by between 8% and 17% with a ludicrous "Eat Out to...
The Dauphine heads into real mountains in the next few days, I can't see Vingegaard sticking with 50 x 33 low gear for those. We will see....
Yeah, it's an implied contract whereby we provide cast-iron video evidence and the police prosecute them.
https://road.cc/category/review-section/accessories/helmets There's a bit in there about how we test helmets, if you're interested.
Exactly - admitting that is an admission of guilt, not a mitigating circumstance, IMO.
Riding a bicycle in a "prohibited area": £220 fine plus £226 costs and a £58 victim surcharge....
"It would be a difficult case to make that those 1951 tyres etc. were just as good, doncha think?"...
They'd better make you lightening fast 'cause for sure I wouldn't want to be seen in these ugly ducklings.
Good reason to fit banned motorists with gps tracker cuffs for the duration of their bans. The cost of provision and monitoring could be recovered...