does anyone notice the similarites between fausto coppi and tyler hamilton, other than their
respective palmares. i am speaking in reference to their injury woes, coppi was 'made of glass' as
some would say, the man was hurt badly many times when he fell. undoubtedly, had coppi not be
injured on so many occasions, his palmares certainly would have been greater in size. hamilton, on
the other hand, especially the last few times he has crashed during races, has ended up getting the
worst of it. fractures of the collarbone, hairline fractures here and here, it surely doesn't help
that he probably doesn't weight a gram over 65 kilos. surely big, powerful Thor Hushovd would come
out of such a crash better than any of the small super-climbers would.
i do applaud tyler for continuing on with the race, he shows the mark of a true champion, someone to
be admired. but in comparison to his giro injury, which if i recall correctly happend around the
halfway mark of the race, does he expect to ride 17 more stages with a collarbone broken in not one,
but two places ? i know of only one other rider who finished a Grand Tour
w/ a broken collarbone, that rider was Niklas Axelsson who rode for 'Navigare' at the time back in
97 or 98 (?) i think. mr. axelsson has since been suspended for doping but that is another story.
i believe that when axelsson was injured he was sitting top 5 or so on GC, but being that his
injury happend near the end of the race he only dropped something like 5-7 places on GC because
the stages were relatively flat.
in summation, it seems possible to ride w/ a broken collarbone in a grand tour, but this early in a
GT ? riding out of the saddle must be nearly out of the question because of the stress it places on
the arms, so attacking and sudden accelerations are out, not to mention the stringent anti-doping
regs that forbid the use of even an anti-inflammatory shot to the cheek to relieve the swelling from
a bee sting. basically, is it worth finishing in 100th place just to finish when you might have gone
for the overall ? surely he could reach good form again by the vuelta if he took extreme care of
himself between now and then, but tyler is tyler, its his choice not mine, not even Riis'
apparently.
shawn