burnthesheep wrote:
See, in bike racing you've got a follow car of some kind behind the pack or it's a parking lot crit. The assistance is there.
On a point 2 point tri, the other athlete could be the only assistance for some time.
I see no difference between a criminal vehicular hit and run and this. Adding the incentive of a triathlon just adds selfish motive to not stay at the scene.
We don't need people in these sports who will leave an injured person. Given that, I'd say dole out a year ban.
Incidents involving touches of bodies or wheels happens. Incidents implying fault even. However, those incidents are part of the sport. But.......leaving injured people behind is NOT part of that.
So yes, there is recourse here. Finding out who, then reporting the who to the organization, and asking the organization to do something. Even if they do nothing.
I wouldn't want that person in a race with me. Hitting you is one thing, but they might be the one that leaves you for dead!
Everyone is getting on here and acting like they are a saint.
I call BS on most of you because I have been the one on the side of the road and had dozens of riders whizz right by, who saw what happened with the road painted red in blood and just put their heads down and figured that someone else would deal with the fallen athlete and their race was more important. Almost none of you stop when I rider is down.
Most of the time, I don't really want to stop either. It takes every ounce of my humanity to grow up and realize its a mom/dad/husband/wife that needs help before I can come to my senses...and I've been the victim at the other end and I still have this racing priority when I am in racing mode....that's what makes most of us racers and if you ever bike race, you just leave the fallen/crashed athletes behind. That's bike racing. It just is. The race goes on. Its brutal but its actually part of bike racing. The race almost never stops for a crash. Remember when Fabio Casertelli hit the rock parapet on the Col d'Aspin in the Tour De France 1995. Well the race went on. Casertelli died and left a newborn son.
The next stage was neutralized but the stage that he died in just kept rolling on. The stage after the neutral stage. Team Motorola crossed the line together
Lance was on a mission and took every risk on the descent imaginable to take the race win.
I was in an Olympic tri 2 weeks ago. Multi loop race. A rider went down before I got to a certain point. I'll tell you what I did. I slowed down, but honestly I wanted to keep racing. There was another person (not a rider, I don't know who) tending to the fallen athlete. I went on with my race but at every aid station after kept telling the volunteers there is an athlete down. The people racing around me, said NOTHING. At the far end of the course I stopped and said, "you might want to get an ambulance out there if you have not". Luckily they got the message from other aid stations (not sure if it way mine or someone elses). By the next loop, I arrive to the spot (4x10km loop, so its only 16ish minutes later) and the ambulance is just getting there. No one wants to stop to make room for the ambulance. Everyone wants to keep racing (as did I, so its not like I am some sort of saint).
NO ONE WANTED TO STOP THEIR RACE TO HELP A FALLEN ATHLETE.
and this was at a local Olympic tri. Everyone was more concerned about their time on sportstats than the poor guy on the ground.
I'm sorry, but I am not buying all the saints on here saying they would just subserve their races to give primary care to another athlete. Most people don't in a race. They keep racing and expect the race staff to take care of the other guy.
To Ed, you'll be OK, just move on. I don't think we gain anything by hunting the guy down and asking for the "revenge" that most people on here are asking for (ban him, shame him, whatever), because I BET that if they were in the same situation in the race as the other guy with you, not knowing exactly the extent of your injury, and with adrenaline through the roof, they pick up their bike and move on. What would I do ? I don't know. I don't think any of us can sit here as keyboard warriors and know what we would do. As a keyboard warrior my answer is, "the right thing to do is to look after Ed on that spot". But in the heat of a race, maybe trying to chase "an only important to me top 20 in my age group", I don't think my thought process would be so clear.
