Haussler and Cavendish. Two blind sprinters tangle.

///Haussler and Cavendish. Two blind sprinters tangle.

Haussler and Cavendish. Two blind sprinters tangle.

Kaboom in Switzerland.

When two blind men sprint at high speed bad things happen. Hand them a cane and some dark sunglasses.

Mark Cavendish (HTC-COlumbia) and Heinrich Haussler (Cervolo) crashed into each other in the final sprint in stage four of the Tour de Suisse. Both men had the tops of their helmets facing forward, eyes straight down, blinded by ambiton and a finish line.

“I didn’t see Cavendish coming,” Haussler said. “He drove into my wheel and before I knew it, I went down and was lying on the ground. Cavendish didn’t see Haussler slide right when he slide left. They collided with both en slamming down hard, bike pin-wheeling, bodies flipping over bodies.

Haussler looked like he got smacked in the face by the rear wheel and derailleur of Gerald Ciolek’s flying Ridely bike. Tom Boonen did Cavendish the immense favor of skillfully avoiding — by inches — running over the Manxman’s face.

It was a brutal crash and one had to feel sorry for both riders, who were nearing peak form for for the Tour de France. After a win in the recent Tour of California, Cavendish was confident in that full, brash, wild man way sponsors love.

Haussler had already endured plenty this season with early crashes, a bad knee, another crash in the Tour of California and then a drunk driving charge. This was a double shot of bitter. He’d just won a stage at the Tour de Suisse and finally felt he was back at the top just in time for July 3rd in Rotterdam.

Look out!

Haussler has a deep wound in his elbow and is out of the race. First drunk driving, then erratic sprinting. It’s a tough life being a bike racer.

Who knows the damages as far as Cavendish goes. While both riders appeared to deviate from their line, it was Cavendish who received the 30 second slap on the wrist. Which certainly was less painful than landing on your back at 40 or 50 mph.

That’s bike racing, as they say. Blind bike racing.

By |2019-02-03T16:29:15-08:00June 15th, 2010|Columbia|3 Comments

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3 Comments

  1. Joakim June 15, 2010 at 3:17 pm - Reply

    Come on, @ 38 sec., Cav' clearly looks at his left and then moves over the road (look at the yellow pedestrian crossing marks) and runs into Haussler.

    Joakim

  2. drfrot June 15, 2010 at 5:10 pm - Reply

    Thanks for the measured reporting – I couldn't agree with your assessment more. The forums and comments sections of other websites are fit to melt, such is the venom being posted!

    Having watched the video myself, several times, I can only conclude that it must be chalked up as 'one of those things' – a freak accident that occurs once in a blue moon. Imagine the pinpoint precision required to taco that carbon rim, for instance…?

    There was nothing unusual about this sprint – it was like a thousand we've all witnessed time and time again. Any other day, Cav & Heinrich would have bumped shoulders, bounced off each other and got on with it, and we'd all be talking about how impressive they are.

    This time, shit happened. I've seen (been in!) many far more technically poor sprints. Could have been a *lot* worse!

  3. Ron June 15, 2010 at 9:01 pm - Reply

    This is just pro cycling's attempt to grab attention from NASCAR fans…

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