I just read this off of Tyler Hamilton's web site...it seems his victory stage jersey was stolen... below is a snipet of the article...
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On a totally different note, I have a crazy story for you about a trip I took to the US earlier this month. I had been invited to fire the starting gun at a race in New York City on August 3rd. After fulfilling my obligations at the event my wife and I were able to use the opportunity to see family and friends as well as travel home to Boston for a couple of days. We hadn’t been Stateside in 7 months, so we were really looking forward to the trip. Since we had been away so long, we had a lot of stuff to bring home with us. Which brings me to my story.
We flew from Barcelona through London Heathrow on to New York-JFK on August 1st. We arrived to find one of our bags was lost. It was a carry on backpack we were told was too heavy to bring on board. It was full of newspaper and magazine articles my wife had saved from the Tour. It also contained a bunch of other race paraphernalia, most importantly, the jersey I wore during my stage victory.
Long story short, we finally received the bag from British Airways 20 days after the fact. We had been back in Europe for almost two weeks by then, so we had sort of given up hope of seeing it again. It was cut up, damaged and the contents were all a wreck. And my jersey was gone.
Traveling as much as I do, I’m used to losing bags. I think it happens at least 10 times a year. But it’s another thing all together to have something stolen from you. You would think with heightened security at the airports these days that theft was not an option. And considering you are no longer allowed to lock your bags, it seems fair to assume surveillance in baggage areas would be extremely high. But to have a backpack sliced up with a knife and pilfered from, proves that this is not always the case. So be careful when you check things these days.
And seriously, if you ever see or hear of anyone offering to sell a 2003 CSC Team jersey with my name and the Tour de France numbers “71” on the back, contact the webmaster of this site to let us know – It’s most likely my stolen shirt. I’ve only given one other one like it away to a friend, and as far as I know he’s keeping it. So there shouldn’t be anything out there remotely similar.
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On a totally different note, I have a crazy story for you about a trip I took to the US earlier this month. I had been invited to fire the starting gun at a race in New York City on August 3rd. After fulfilling my obligations at the event my wife and I were able to use the opportunity to see family and friends as well as travel home to Boston for a couple of days. We hadn’t been Stateside in 7 months, so we were really looking forward to the trip. Since we had been away so long, we had a lot of stuff to bring home with us. Which brings me to my story.
We flew from Barcelona through London Heathrow on to New York-JFK on August 1st. We arrived to find one of our bags was lost. It was a carry on backpack we were told was too heavy to bring on board. It was full of newspaper and magazine articles my wife had saved from the Tour. It also contained a bunch of other race paraphernalia, most importantly, the jersey I wore during my stage victory.
Long story short, we finally received the bag from British Airways 20 days after the fact. We had been back in Europe for almost two weeks by then, so we had sort of given up hope of seeing it again. It was cut up, damaged and the contents were all a wreck. And my jersey was gone.
Traveling as much as I do, I’m used to losing bags. I think it happens at least 10 times a year. But it’s another thing all together to have something stolen from you. You would think with heightened security at the airports these days that theft was not an option. And considering you are no longer allowed to lock your bags, it seems fair to assume surveillance in baggage areas would be extremely high. But to have a backpack sliced up with a knife and pilfered from, proves that this is not always the case. So be careful when you check things these days.
And seriously, if you ever see or hear of anyone offering to sell a 2003 CSC Team jersey with my name and the Tour de France numbers “71” on the back, contact the webmaster of this site to let us know – It’s most likely my stolen shirt. I’ve only given one other one like it away to a friend, and as far as I know he’s keeping it. So there shouldn’t be anything out there remotely similar.