Absolutely horrible.

I don't know what the technical term is, not to mention the laws of the relevant nations, but that's attempted involuntary manslaughter IMO. Lifetime ban.

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I hope someone beat the sh*t out of that guy after the race - credit card in the mouth and a pleasant chelsea grin

I'm fine dropping the hammer on Groenewegen, but he wasn't attempting to kill Jakobsen. Some sort of assault charge, I could see.

The primary blame is on Dylan, but this also hopefully leads to real talk about course design, barrier design and consistent enforcement of sprinting behavior that *doesn't* result in someone going down. Because the same thing happening where no one goes down is often just either relegation or overlooked entirely, "Let the racers race" mentality.

Also the large stationary arch over the finish line absolutely needed hay bales or similar in front of it.

This is all true. And I think you agree with me on this, but the danger of the finish was certainly apparent to all the riders which surely would have called for more restraint - even in race mentality, but Groenewegen goes full take-down anyway.

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Ed O'Malley
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I agree here.
1. Competitors will always crowd other competitors. It happens running on the track, it happens in cycling, it happens in auto racing.

2. We can discourage this action by levying fines, etc. that are substantial enough to make people think twice.

3. Knowing that this is going to happen, we need to ensure that facilities are designed as appropriately as possible, this is doubly so for enclosed areas.
a. All forms of auto-racing have designed run-off areas and safety barriers
b. We cannot logistically protect the entire cyclist course.
c. High-risk areas need to be better protected. This applies to finish areas, "road-furniture" etc. Especially in Europe these are not taken overly seriously. e.g. Put a guy with a flag in front of a concrete barrier.

4. Finish areas need Smooth, linked, barriers that will not disperse when collided with and guide the rider to the ground without hooking handlebars or pedals. There have been hundreds of finish line crashes and thousands more brushes against barriers that have not resulted in crashes. This was one was particularly bad because the barriers came apart which allowed Jakobsen to leave the course and hit stationary objects. It also allowed the barriers to move onto the course causing further crashes.

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this is very much on point. there is a video i saw but cannot find the link showing this vs the Sagan/Cav crash in TDF as a side by side comparison. very similar dynamics but Cav bounced off the barriers that had padding and also a little air bag. this kept him on course and limited his injuries. this is a very good opportunity for UCI to demand more review on these course set ups. nobody needs to see 80kph down hill bunch sprints with unforgiving barriers. thoughts and prayers for Jacob.

I don’t agree, I think the organizers are the first to blame. WTF were they thinking in having a downhill finish on a stage doomed to be ending in a sprint.
Sure, Dylan does not stay on his line, at all, but I think it is quite difficult to stay on your line at 80 km/ph with a bike moving side to sidecat that speed. But I’m sure this wasn’t the outcome that any rider, Dylan included, wished.

I’m quite sure there be no legal grounds to punish Dylan further then what is done right now, a suspension. Legal charges will be really hard to ‘prove’.

Gladly it was just on the news that Fabio that he out of life danger.

I think the race organizers are as much to blame, the racks on the side of the road are not the correct one. There a very good racks available that can reduce the impact of the rider, create a safety net. Like as with the down hill ski’ing.
Why not draw lines 1, 1.5 or 2 meters apart, 100m from the finish so riders can visibly see between what lines they need to stay within entering that ‘zone’.

This sprint only knows losers.

Jeroen

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Fines aren't good enough and won't be effective enough. These guys are making split second decisions at high speed and aren't going to think about the 1000 euro fine they are going to get. It's kind of like how do you keep people from speeding, tickets don't work that well (if they cops wouldn't have to write them all the time), but proper road design does. The areas of the course that are particularly dangerous need to be better architected.

Organizers definitely share the blame, but the rider holds the bulk of it in my mind.

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Ed O'Malley
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I find this to be an absurd excuse for what is either

a) incompetence
b) ignorant-of-consequences malicious intent

Blaming it on the organizers is just excusing Groenwegen. BLAME Groenwegen, and galvanize deeper review and safety features on the part of organizer.

Even when racing for glory, the instantaneous instinct to try to put your opponent into the barrier has been allowed by organizers to become ingrained. Humans are not just blood-thirsty selfish animals who can never be restrained from injuring their competitors. (well, most of us are not)

If you straight up DQ everyone leading a sprint who does not hold their line, every time, crash or not, they will change their behavior.

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In Poland, it was the opposite of unforgiving. They looked like lightweight pieces of plastic doing not much more than supporting banners.

His elbow is clearly out and it's intentional. Ban him for the rest of his life and charge him with something if possible. We need to take out someone bad like this for good. Absolutely unnecessary accident and injury. Can't imagine poor guy and his family/friends are going through. Motherfuckers and assholes are everywhere....

Most egregious elbow since Katie Zaferes on Cassandre Beaugrand during Superleague. Whiney high pitched voice "I think I elbowed herrrrrrrrr".

I am aware that Criquielion wasn't able to prevail in his suit against Bauer.

But then again, it might be less hard if it could be demonstrated that this is not an one-off incident

I'll get it started



How Groenenwegen wasn't DQ'ed here is beyond me. I guess Naesen's handling abilities were just too good, for had he fallen due to the Groenenwegen's line change, Groenenwegen would have been seen as more culpable.

Should have been penalized four years ago; might have learned his lesson...

this is the issue. it is instinctive for a sprinter who senses someone coming up alongside them to close the door. from a sprinter's perspective, Groenwegen's mistake was to start his sprint in the middle of the road which left space for everyone and meany he had to move so far to close the door, making it look bad even before the contact. that and he did was too late getting there so Jakobsen was already alongside.

what happened was terrible but the same behaviour happens in most sprint finishes, Groenwegen just crossed the fine line between getting away with it and not. how many WT sprinters can say they haven't made similar deviations?

the suggestion of putting lines on the road is a good one

In my opinion you guys are coming down way to hard on DG.
It's easy for us armchair QB's to be all up in arms, and of course what happned to Jacobson is terrible.

Sure what he did was wrong and he should be DQ'd, but on the flip side moves like this are very common is racing, go back and watch the last 20 bunch sprints of the last 5-6 years and you will see plenty of moves like this, some even much worse.
Obviously this one had very bad consequences but the move itself wasn't really anything that crazy.
I'm not saying that I dont feel bad for Jacobson, but to crucify DG for a move that I can almost guarantee you every sprinter has done multiple times in their career (go and watch the sprint that Demare pulled at the tour a couple of years ago) is not the right answer either.

Agree. It's racing, and you should race exactly like you fight, to win. I'm not seeing anything too unusual in the video.

I don’t know what the appropriate punishment should be but seems like more than just a DQ. why shouldn’t there be more severe consequences for a more damaging end result of one’s wrong doing?

With all due respect, resorting to "tradition" and "how it's always been done" without actual justification the merits thereof is fallacious. I'm not going to go into the larger societal events and will focus solely on examples in cycling.

-Generations raced without compulsory usage of helmets; until there were some horrendous incidents, and it was decided that enough was enough, and that all must wear helmets while competing.
-Generations raced in hazardous weather conditions, until one too many races were conducted under such conditions and people had enough. We now have the Extreme Weather Protocol.
-Racers used to cross barriers at level crossings with impunity, reasoning that if enough people did it, no one would be penalized. The fiasco at the 2015 Roubaix showed just how potentially dangerous that could be. New rules were implemented the next year, and the UCI began to DQ entire groups of riders.
-Then there's wide-spread acceptance of usage of doping agents, until the higher ups realized that the integrity of the sport itself was at stake and decided to do something about it.

Were we to look solely to "tradition" and not make decisions on reason, no one would be wearing helmets; nothing would force cancellation of races; people would still cross lowered barriers in droves; and we may still have riders dying in their sleep.


Maybe this horrible incident will for once bring the debate to the fore re: acceptable sprinting behaviors.

I agree - question though

do they have "enforcers" if you will like the oldschool hockey guys? Like you do that to our sprinter and next race, you're going to be f*cked with and probably be intentionally wrecked as a lesson.

NealH wrote:

I'm not seeing anything too unusual in the video.

He opened up his sprint just to the right of the dotted line. Then ended up right on the barriers. That crosses about 3 lanes (I think 3 riders could have fit to his right on his original line choice). Unquestionably 2.

Quote:

Riders shall be strictly forbidden to deviate from the lane they selected when launching into the sprint and, in so doing, endangering others.

Now I'm sure someone could go back and find instances where riders have crossed similar distances and not been penalized. The video of Groenewegen vs. Naesen going around could be one of those.

But I think it may benefit cycling more to start enforcing the rule rather than accepting prior unenforced violation as a new "unwritten rule."

Outside of meltdowns like Moscon, I don't think so - these days with cameras everywhere. And particularly not at high speed.

But yeah, DQS can do all sorts of non-crashy things to keep Groenewegen from seeing the front of a sprint if they make that a priority. Not a team to be messed with.

By that logic you could ride someone off the road on a fast mountain decent or get one of your team to do it. It isn't hard to wait until someone overlaps you and then push them into danger. It seems clear to me that cyclist safety should be the top priority.

Racing is competing to see who is fastest. Not taking a cheap shot that causes serious injury.