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news
Johan Bruyneel Photo by Maryse Alberti, Courtesy of Sony Pictures ClassicsJohan Bruyneel: Cycle helmet saved my skull
Johan Bruyneel has tweeted a picture of his cycle helmet which cracked following a crash today – and says that if he hadn’t been wearing it, it could have been his skull that was broken.
The 51-year-old Belgian, who as manager of US Postal and Discovery Channel led Lance Armstrong to the seven Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2005 he was stripped of in 2012, told his followers he had “lost balance” in what he described as “an innocent crash.”
Lost balance, innocent crash. This would've happened 2my skull, hadn't I been wearing a helmet. #ProtectYourHead pic.twitter.com/2zRhWRHdPG
— Johan Bruyneel (@JohanBruyneel) November 10, 2015
To the many followers who have been asking: I'm completely fine. The only damage was the helmet. Both my body and my bike are doing well.
— Johan Bruyneel (@JohanBruyneel) November 10, 2015
As a rider, Bruyneel won two Tour de France stages and also wore the race leader’s yellow jersey.
While most closely linked with Armstrong as a team manager, he also guided Alberto Contador to overall Tour de France victories with Discovery Channel in 2007 and Astana in 2009.
The latter race took place during Armstrong’s comeback season with the Kazakh team, the Texan finishing third overall, although he would be stripped of that result too, with Bradley Wiggins moving up to take the final podium spot.
Bruyneel subsequently moved with Armstrong to the new RadioShack team for the 2010 season and remained with it when it merged with Leopard-Trek to form RadioShack-Nissan.
He was sacked by the Luxembourg outfit in October 2012 after the United States Anti-Doping Agency published its reasoned decision following its investigation of doping at US Postal.
In April last year Bruyneel, who is based in London and Madrid – this week, he’s been riding in Spain – was banned from involvement with sport for 10 years as a result of the US Postal scandal.
Unlike Armstrong, who confessed to doping in early 2013, Bruyneel had protested his innocence and chose, unsuccessfully, to submit to arbitration.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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In all fairness, it almost certainly NEVER happened…
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17 comments
10 years. Good.
So he lost his balance? That suggests that the fella was going less than walking speed or had forgot to unclip when coming to a stop. If this was the case then the helmet did its job for an impact that it was designed for. Fair does.
Well his head was in it when he crashed and I'm guessing he's seen a lot of cycle related head injuries in his time. So I hope all you experts who weren't there, have only a picture of a broken helmet but are able to come to a conclusion that it didn't work don't mind if I consider your comments to be complete and utter crap.
Shame
Christ on a see-saw, the internet really is filled with haters. Still as long as you're stuck on your keyboard at least you 're doing relatively little real harm.
Looking at the picture of the helmet, it seems that it cracked without compressing the foam, so absorbed almost no energy. Take a ceiling tile and try to snap it with your fingers; easy isn't it? Now take the same tile and try to crush it with your fingers; hard isn't it? Any helmet that cracks before compressing has failed catastrophically and provided almost no protection.
JB might like to read a bit about helmets before making completely unfounded and inaccurate statements, just like all the other "helmet saved my life" stories. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1209.html
Though to be fair we can't see the whole helmet, the crack may simply be the most dramatic damage. The helmet may have saved his life or prevented life changing injury, but it's an anecdote - so nothing really can be broadly inferred one way or another. All we can say is 'great, glad you're OK', and carry on cycling - with or without a helmet, as we choose.
If you would really care about protecting you head during a crash you would advocate for MOTORCYCLE-style helmets not foam pieces of crap which break like that.
Well, yeah, but how well-ventilated is a motorcycle helmet, huh?
Brilliant bit of logic.
So they can sell more units?
Guy makes point about helmet safety in his opinion - people post bitter comments.
Wow.
It's no use spouting about your helmet and how it may have saved your skull Johan.
There will always be a very small minority of " Sun" readers here in blighty happy to blindly tell you a different story. Your name may just as well be Jeremy !
Armstrong and claims of helmet protecting head in one article?! Popcorn!!
JB, go back to your hole in the ground.
Oh, Johan, you magnificent advocate of factual facts and rider's safety, if you had blamed it on overzelous disc brakes we'd have some real kindling on our hands.