DOWN GOES VINGEGAARD, DOWN GOES ROGLIC, DOWN GOES REMCO!
The sport's best riders suffered serious injuries at the Itzulia Basque Country race. But how many times should TV broadcasts replay a crash? How much is too much?
Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic, and Remco Evenepoel, all contenders to win the Tour de France, suffered severe injuries at the Itzulia Basque Country race in Spain on Thursday. Riding at the front of the peloton, they overshot a curve on a downhill stretch of road and slid and rammed into a concrete drainage ditch, or went down trying to avoid it, as well as the boulders and trees along the side of the road.
A dozen riders were strewn across the roadside, some motionless, including Vingegaard. Jay Vine of Team UAE Emirates seemed to suffer the worst injuries with a broken back. Evenepoel, who slid for what seemed like miles along a grassy field, suffered a broken collarbone. Roglic made his way to the team car and gave a thumbs up to the cameras. Other cyclists were being examined and monitored at the hospital.
The crash matters because it, like Wout van Aert’s crash last week, scrambles the season. Maybe Vingegaard can recover in time to win the Tour de France for a third time. Maybe Roglic and Evenepoel can heal in time to win their first. Their injuries create a path to victory for their competitors, but their absence would deprive fans of watching a great rivalry between Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar unfold once again.
As always, subscribe to Beyond the Peloton for the best analysis of how the crash happened and how it will impact the season.
But as much as the crash might reshape the outcomes of the remaining Spring Classics, like Paris-Roubaix, and the Grand Tours, it raises some difficult ethical issues and questions for professional cycling.
First, knowing full well that professional cycling can be cruel and brutal, I was surprised—given that the crash took place at the front of the peloton—that very few of riders stopped to check on their teammates. Maybe I shouldn’t have been.
Sepp Kuss, Vingegaard’s teammate, said in an oddly nonchalant and low-key manner (maybe he was in shock) during a post-race interview that it would have been dangerous for him and others around him if he had stopped to check on Vingegaard.
Hey, Sepp, some professional advice: You might have won the Vuelta last year, but protecting Jonas is your job!
That said, two of Vingegaard’s teammates could be seen checking on him. Viewers could see another cyclist riding back uphill to check on his teammates.
Second, crashing is a common event whether racing or just riding a bike. As the saying goes, there are two types of cyclists. Those who have crashed and those who will. The difference is that crashes in professional cycling are seen on live television.
How much of the crash and its fallout should viewers be able to see?
As in other sports, there is some thrill in watching an unexpected mishap or crash even as we might wince and groan because we know full well how much hitting the deck can hurt.
The reality is that big crashes (like big hits in a football game) drive ratings. And those are just the run-of-the-mill crashes that happen all too often on slick roads, during the early, nerve wracking stages of the Grand Tours, or during bunch sprint finishes. The crash at the Basque Country was a season-ending or, perhaps, even a career-ending crash.
In fact, the crash yesterday was so awful that MAX (formerly HBO) has not posted the replay of Stage 4. It normally posts the replay once the stage has ended.
The Eurosport broadcast stayed with the crash for quite some time eventually moving images of the crash to a smaller box on the lower corner of the screen as another camera panned back to follow what was left of the race.
So how should television broadcasts cover such a crash? How many times should the crash be replayed to see, if possible, who or what caused it? At what point should the commentators and play-by-play analysts stop talking and stop speculating?
Cycling is not the first sport to face this issue.
Formula One, for example, requires broadcasts to avoid replays of crashes until the welfare of the drivers is taken into account.
But often the discretion of what to do is left up to the broadcasters.
Take the NFL. Many of us are old enough to remember the hit on Washington quarterback Joe Theismann and seeing his leg snap in half over and over again.
Fast forward nearly 40 years. ESPN showed a level of sensitivity when Buffalo Bills’ Demar Hamlin collapsed after taking a hit to the chest. It was infuriating to watch the NFL dither over whether to cancel the game, but ESPN didn’t replay the hit over and over again and the commentators in the broadcast booth and the studio did their best to manage an almost impossible situation.
At the Basque Country race, Eurosport showed the crash multiple times and then continued to focus on the chaotic aftermath. Of the many disturbing images was Vingegaard being carried from the crash site on a stretcher hooked up to an oxygen tank. The image probably scared the living daylights out of his family and friends and it raised more questions than it answered.
Was he conscious? Was he even breathing? Was he alive?
Visma later posted on social media that he never lost consciousness and suffered a broken collarbone and ribs.
That leads us to another issue—not an ethical one, but a more practical one.
How believable is the information provided by Visma’s team management? In these instances, organizations typically seek to protect themselves rather than provide a full picture of the facts.
At a glance, yesterday’s crash presents Visma LAB with an almost existential crisis. With van Aert and Vingegaard injured and out of action for weeks if not months, Visma is like the Chiefs without Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes. It would be surprising, but not at all shocking, if they were putting a positive spin on Vingegaard’s injuries.
At last year’s Vuelta a Espana, with Kuss leading the race and Vingegaard and Roglic right behind him, the team could not or would not, maybe both, provide a straight up answer about who the team would support as its GC rider. Would the team give fans a Hollywood ending and let the American super-domestique win? Or would they let “the road decide” and make the selfless American give way to the cold-hearted Europeans?
Whatever Visma LAB is saying and whatever the reality, and maybe there’s no gap between the two, I wish all the riders who crashed a speedy recovery knowing full well that these injuries get worse before they get better.