We also had the one-day Vattenfall classic out in Hamburg, where Orica did not have a good day, with two of their riders down in a late crash, and another down in a very, very late crash.
The first crash occurred 40k out, leaving Keukeleire with bruises and stitches in his thigh ("ouch!") but poor Stuey has bust his collarbone, and fractured "several" ribs.
The late crash was just before the finish line, and Darryl Impey went down very hard indeed, leaving him with fractured ribs as well.
Not a good day for Orica, but they've done really well overall this season, currently sitting 7th in the UCI rankings. (Yes, Stinkoff are still bottom, with just 155 points: Shack are 10th with 529 and predictably *waves Union Jack, now somewhat battered* Sky are top with 1,321 points)
Bizarrely, their website doesn't seem to have been updated since the Tour: I went to it for news of Stuey, but there is nothing more recent that the round-up of the Tour. Weird! So all we have are the news reports.
Poor Stuey, eh? Perhaps he'll go and stay with Andy in Mondorf for a while.
Somewhere in Mondorf:
Andy, Frankie and Jakob are slumped on the sofa. Andy has his eyes fixed on the tv, Frankie is texting, and Jakob is experimenting with holding different coloured sweetie wrappers over the torch that he is holding.
The TV is showing an incomprehensible children's tv programme involving a stuffed lion, two sticks of what appear to be celery, with eyes and mouths, and a woman with her hand inside a sock, which also has eyes and a mouth, and which appears to be talking to her. Luckily, the sound is muted. Andy is watching it anyway, seemingly hypnotised.
The doorbell rings, there is knocking and scuffling, then the sound of the door opening and something heavy being dropped on the floor, along with muffled curses in a strong Australian accent.
Andy, slumped on the sofa with a cushion under his backside, nudges Jakob with his elbow, without taking his eyes from the screen.
"Go give Stuey a hand, mate," he says.
Jakob returns, supporting an ashen-faced Stuey, who drops heavily down onto the sofa, but then instantly leaps to his feet again, howling with pain.
"What &&**%^$^&* left this &*%$$$£**&^ torch on the &&^%£^** sofa?" he yells.
"Whoops!" says Jakob, looking guilty. "Sorry, mate!"
The torch is removed, Stuey is swiftly re-settled on the sofa, and Frankie goes to the fridge, returning with an armful of sealed beakers of "Clean'n'Pure" fruit drink.
He offers Stuey first choice. Stuey groans. "Oh blimey, not this stuff again, can't we have some beer?"
Frankie: "No, mate, not while you are on antibiotics. And even though none of us are racing, we are still subject to doping controls, so we still have to be very, very careful."
Andy and Jakob exchange a glance behind Frankie's back.
Stuey takes the nearest beaker, and pops the seal. "What flavour is this one, then?"
Andy grins. "Close your eyes and taste it," he says, "then tell us what flavour you think it is."
This is clearly a standing joke, as they all take a beaker, pop the seal, close their eyes, and take a swig.
"Orange."
"Orange."
"Orange."
"Blue."
"Blue? What sort of flavour is blue?"
"Well, it's not orange, it tastes, well, sort of blue."
"Pass it over here, let's have a taste."
There is a confused moment of scuffling, swearing, and clashing of beakers.
"Perhaps we should open our eyes first?"
His comment on twitter that the hardest thing about it was that he had to tell his daughters he could not jump on the trampoline with them was sad and sweet at the same time. Hope the surgery went well and that he'll soon be jumping on the trampoline with his daughters again.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm so happy that Jens signed for another year!
Oh en Mr. Bruyneel is never going to learn I guess. Still doing some bad talk on his own team in the media... http://www.nieuwsblad.be/sportwereld/cnt/DMF20120821_073 To translate his quotes: "RadioShack failed this season. The merger has been very difficult and is the reason for our bad season. During the transfer period, some profound changes will be made."
"I have faith that in 2013 we will see a different team. We will sign on some new names."
"I have discovered that the Schlecks are not easy to work with. Anyway, we are not at the point where we can't talk or work together anymore."
I don't expect we'll ever see the day where he will admit that when there's two fighting, there's TWO to blame. Not just the other person.
Jakob is racing in the USA Pro Challenge. Actually that race looks better than Vuelta right now, seems that teams sent their big names to USA P.C. and left Vuelta to Contador.
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