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Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules...
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Why did the Lance have everyone wait for Jan when he crashed a few years back, and not wait to see if Beloki was going to continue after his crash this year? I realize why everyone waited for Lance yesterday, since he was in the yellow yersey, but don't quite understand the difference in the previous two examples, I'm a bit new to watching the tour.

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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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It was obvious that he was not getting up.

It is known that you do not break on food, pottie, technical or other unexpected times in road racing in Europe. American racing (crits) on the otherhand, we will take others disadvantage to our advantage.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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I think it is a circumstance type thing? First Beloki wasn't the race leader, they were on a descent, the pack did somewhat slow up.

Ullrich not the race leader himself but the race leader was sitting up for him. If you look at the replays Ullrich was immediately trying to get himself back in the race, same with Armstrong yesterday. Beloki didn't have that luxury and I think the racers new it. Armstrong the race leader (Possibly not the race leader on the road at that time) in the case with Beloki didn't have a chance to sit up for him because of the circumstances, they were on the chase, (the race leader was being attacked), the cyclocross event and they were descending.

I think the racers had a pretty good assumption that Beloki wasn't going to get up from that crash.

Just my take.
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Stewart] [ In reply to ]
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Didn't Jan go off the road into a deep ditch? Doesn't seem like they knew that Jan would be recovering from that fall. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong instance.

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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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I think they did wait up for Beloki as long as they could. They were descending and they did not seem to push it on the descent. Also, if you look at the finish, it looked like they were soft-pedaling up until about 200 meters to go then started their sprint. This may have been a part of normal sprint tactics, but I took it to mean that they had been taking it easy up until that point.
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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Jack - You are thinking of the right instance but when you watch the replay, Ullrich was back on the road in maybe 15-30 seconds. It was obvious he was continuing.

As others have mentioned, Beloki's crash was brutal and it was obvious he wasn't getting up. Atleast not immediately. I would also imagine the team radio communication let the other riders know that Beloki had crashed hard and to keep riding.

maurice
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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The unwritten rule is that you do not begin an attack of a key player that is riding with you when they go down. If you're riding together when a guy goes down, and if slowing doesn't cost you anything other than holding place with the fallen rider, you wait.

In the Beloki crash, the yellow group was being attacked at the time; they didn't start an attack on Beloki. They had no obligation to wait for him since they were at that time trying to run down Vinokourov. If they'd have slowed and waited for Beloki, they ran the risk of letting Vino run away with the Tour. Vino certainly didn't slow down.

For example, if Lance is 40 seconds up the road while attacking Ullrich, I bet he wouldn't stop if Ullrich fell.
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [mauric6943] [ In reply to ]
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In the Ullrich incident, Armstrong said afterwards that he saw Ullrich getting up while he was down in the ditch so he knew he was coming back.

With Beloki, with the way the switchbacks were situation, I think the pack was observing the situation as the rode on. I suspect they had a good idea Beloki wasn't getting up by the time Armstrong came flying out of the field - especially since they could see his teammate standing there beside him.

I don't think Armstrong knew what the hell was going on at the point. Further, I'd venture it took him awhile to figure out Beloki wasn't in the pack once he himself was back. He just didn't know, that fight or flight thing . . .
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [JeffJ] [ In reply to ]
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Here's what Frankie Andreau had to say about it: (http://www.olntv.com)

Then, on the climb, Vinikourov took off in pursuit. He was not only chasing the leaders, he also was in search of valuable seconds from Armstrong. Before the top of the final climb, Vini caught Jakshe, and Parra and didn't hesitate. He went right by.

At the top he had 20 seconds on Lance's group, which contained all the favorites. Then Beloki charged the descent. As Lance told me, "Beloki was very aggressive on the descent, he was bombing it." Coming into one of the final corners, Beloki locked up his rear wheel and hit the melting pavement.

He then rolled his tire and slapped the ground hard, landing on his hip. Lance, who was right on Beloki, had to react immediately and hit the brakes.

At high speeds when you hit the brakes, your bike straightens out and you can't corner. This is what Lance did and he drove off the road into a field. He then realized that the corner ahead was a hairpin and the road doubled back. He looked up and decided to cut across a field to where the road continued.

At that point, he told me, he saw the ditch and realized he had to stop, jump off his bike, and jump back on the road. All this happened very quickly and Lance jumped back on his bike right when the other riders were passing by. It was a perfect move.

Once Lance was back in the group, the other riders stopped riding. They were waiting to see if Beloki was all right. If the group was all together, they probably would have all stopped riding so hard to give Beloki a chance to return. The problem was that Vini was up the road and he was not slowing down for anyone.

Vini is one of the favorites for the Tour and letting him have free seconds would not be the smartest thing to do. The group soon realized this and started their pursuit again, but Vini won the stage easily.

The Postal Service guys had a long hard day on the front. All of them had a long chase after the 10-man break and again the temperatures were soaring. Every day in the Tour this year has been in very hot conditions. Lance looked a ton better today then he did yesterday. He almost looked fresh at the end today compared to yesterday, where he looked cooked.

Beloki's crash messed him up. He has a fractured top of the femur and his hip is very bad also. He is in the hospital getting looked at. The OLN television cameraman was there on the spot and said Beloki was in incredible pain and was crying for awhile. He actually passed out for a bit. This is a huge blow to ONCE and to the Tour de France. Beloki had been very aggressive this year making the races quite exciting.


clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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You never know what Johan was telling Lance through the radio?

He might have been feeding Lance the info
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [Jack in Mi] [ In reply to ]
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Shouldn't the onus be on Vino? With the radios, he should have known what was going on behind him and he picked up at least 15 seconds + time bonus because of Beloki's and Lance's misfortune. From what I saw, both Lance and Beloki would have reeled him in if the fall had not happened.

Bob Sigerson
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Re: Question about Beloki's crash and unwritten rules... [sig] [ In reply to ]
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See one of the threads above - Vino was already some way into his attack when Beloki bailed. He's not going to stop and wait for them to catch up under those circumstances. There's a difference between intiating an attack when someone's indisposed and keeping doing what you're doing when they have difficulties.
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