Not even the world’s most famous cycling race can get through the event without a fan taking a selfie ruining everything.
I think the world is slowly becoming anti-selfie, with selfie sticks slowly becoming obsolete and country star Miranda Lambert calling out fans at her own show for snapping pictures instead of “living in the moment” at her concert.
And in another edition of “smart phones making people dumb,” we have this fan who was trying to get just the right angle for a picture of themself and ended up disrupting the Tour De France, one of the most prestigious events in all of sports.
The NBC Sports Cycling Twitter account (for only the most die hard cycling fans to follow) did a pretty job of breaking down the break down of the race, even putting things in slow motion and zooming in like it’s the modern day Zapruder film.
The announcers calling the race give commentary on the replay of the incident, saying:
“It’s the front rider that goes down and he takes out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…at least 10 riders and maybe more there going down in that crash.
Spectator in the white hat, looking like (they are) filming up the road but not looking at the riders coming towards him. Looks like the cell phone is out, and when it comes back in, right onto the arm and handle bars of Nathan Van Hooydonck, taking multiple riders down there. Only a few riders getting through safely.”
Two things to unpack there:
-Seems like it was either a selfie being taken, or a video or picture of racers passing by. Either way, it was probably “for the Gram,” so the specifics don’t matter that much.
-No, I did not just make up the name of a cyclist in that quote. Nathan Van Hooydonck is a real, legitimate Belgian cyclist, and I’m very glad that I just have to write his name and I don’t have to say it out loud.
Anyways, take a look at what will probably be the only coverage of the 2023 Tour De France you’ll watch:
Absolutely brutal. Imagine being the person that is responsible for that wreck. You’re probably losing some sleep after ruining an event that riders have been training their whole lives for.
If the whole thing seems eerily familiar, that’s because something very similar happened at the 2021 Tour De France. You might remember this video of some idiot holding a cardboard sign out in front of the riders and causing their very own pileup:
The Tour De France: where people come to watch the best cyclists in the world and also occasionally ruin it with stupidity. Someone check to see if the “white hat guy” or the “sign girl” had money with a sportsbook on a certain cyclist to win…
