Dutch rider Theo Bos (Rabobank) brought down race leader Daryl Impey (Barloworld) in the final stage of the Presidential Tour of Turkey on Sunday.
Bos immediately denied the accusations that the crash was deliberately caused. “I didn’t pull Impey down, I am not crazy,” he said on Rabobank’s website. “At that speed and that position I would have torpedoed myself. No way [that I would have done that].”
Bos didn’t remember all the details, as things happened in a split second. “But I know for a fact that I just wanted to defend myself against him [Impey]. He came over to my side and I was as good as in the barrier.” The barriers, which were not put in a straight line, eventually caused the crash. “I touched a foot of one the barriers and that way brought down Impey,” Bos said.
Impey had a different account on his website. “I got taken down deliberately … only one word for him [Bos] and that is a true chop head. He doesn’t deserve to race anymore and I am thinking about going to the UCI about his dangerous riding. He tried to pass me 700m to go in the bunch sprint but there was no-where to go and all of a sudden I felt a hand on my shoulder pulling me into the barriers. We both crashed.”
Impey was able to ride over the finish line but had to skip the podium ceremony for further examinations. Impey is still in Alanya, Turkey, where he has to stay in bed. “He has a micro fracture on his first vertebrae in the lower back,” Barloworld’s PR person Claudio Masnata told Cyclingnews. “It is a big trauma,” Masnata said, but added that the recovery process is looking good. “He also lost a tooth.”
The incident, which was barely caught by the TV cameras, was a hot topic on twitter as well. Lance Armstrong (Astana) was quite surprised the judges didn’t issue a ruling against the Dutchman. “Bos doesn’t even get disqualified. Pitiful. He deserves a long suspension,” Armstrong said via twitter.
Robbie McEwen (Katusha) initially had the same sentiments, stating that "there goes Theo Bos’ “Best + Fairest Award Nomination.” But McEwen corrected himself after thorough study of the images. “You have to watch the Bos thing 30 times - in slow motion. I don’t think he did it on purpose,” McEwen posted a few hours later.
Pretty nuts move. I can only think that he was pissed off from some kind of altercation in the peloton. It does look deliberate though. Surely if something’s going wrong you don’t lean all the way forward and grab someone’s jersey like that?
i don’t think he did it on purpose. after watching the vid a dozen times you can see bos being forced into the railing, he pulls on Impey to try and stabilize himself but crashes into the railings anyways. the force of the crash makes it look like he is throwing Impey.
who the hell would be crazy enough to pull a guy into your own path.
I know it’s hard to undo the damage, but the key is watching this with the sound off. When you’ve got someone barking in your ear “DID YOU SEE THAT! WHAT A DISGRACE!”, it’s hard not to see something. I’m not convinced Bos is as much of a nutbag as the commentator makes him out to be.
Deliberate or not, it doesn’t appear necessary for Bos to hold Impey’s jersey when he fell, but I suppose that is a reflex action when you’re going down.
+1… that railing goes in and out like a fiddler’s elbow.
meh… i dont know what his arm was doing in front of him in the first place.
It looks like he’s reaching forward from the start of that video, and grabs the yellow jersey.
He didnt go for the guy’s back… he went for his shoulder.
That just doesnt seem that logical to me.
I dont know about wanting to deliberately hurt the fella… but it doesnt look kosher to me
If you want to move a fellow racer out of your way (if you are overtaking), it is commonplace to nudge or shove them. A push on the hips does nothing, a push on the shoulder means a good chance that the racer will move sideways enough to let you get through. It has more effect on their steering and gives the impression that you are almost level with the rider in front, rather than almost behind them.
You do know that this is a bunch of professionals doing their job, racing? With real money on the line? This isn’t a drag race with lanes for each rider; contact between riders, drafting and boxing in your opponents is normal. :roll:
Look at the entire video again. A bunch sprint is always extremely tight and riders are always squeezing through non-existent gaps. There was more than one crash in that sprint! The major thing that caught out Bos was that he is used to following a line (trackie) and the barriers were waving all over the place. The bunch squeezed left, Bos ran out of room, started to run up against the barriers and tried to stop himself from crashing by hanging onto the rider next to him.
One kermesse I did in Belgium (I didn’t last long), I was cornering shoulder to shoulder in a bunch on wet cobbles at about 45 km/h and a hand came out, grabbed my bars and steered me round the corner. Obviously the bloke (never saw him, too crowded) thought I needed some help to find the right line on a tricky corner. In another race (in Qld), I had a rider pull my jersey to stop himself from falling into a gutter when the bunch was weaving. We both stayed up that time.
Look at the video again, see the bunch drift left before the crash and see how close Bos is to the barriers.
Sometimes, if the rider in front is amenable, a touch is all you need for the rider to give some room. If the rider in front moves across you, either deliberately or while following the wheel in front, the rider behind can run out of room very quickly. The normal reaction is hang onto something to try to stay upright.
Try doing some bunch sprints where there is real money on the line and then you’ll know what sprinting is really like.
I don’t believe Bos did this on purpose. He’s not entirely stupid, he wouldn’t pull a rider down knowing he was in the view of the cameras, and I also doubt he is that malicious. I agree with LittleWheelandBig. Those barriers are terrible. And the commentator didn’t know what he was talking about, and completely soiled Bos’ name.
