There are a lot of expectations of a champion. Expectations to win, expectations to lead, expectations to honor the title in the peleton. Many people talk about the curse of being a champion, as if you are doomed to less wins, less results, and bad luck.
Currently Thor Hushovd is the road race world champion in professional cycling. That means every race he wears a the world champion rainbow colors, and carries all those expectations with him. I’d imagine different riders “wear” the jersey differently. Some may expect to be waited on hand and foot, some may pull back under the stress into solitude, some may break in that pressure – or some may shine.
I’ve been really impressed with the way Thor has “worn” the world champion jersey this year. Not only has he had to wear that jersey, but his team went through a merger that made him 1 of 2 world class sprinters on the team. And even in the midst of that tension he has shown to be a team player, often leading out Tyler Farrar, the other sprinter, to victories in races.
Today in the Tour de France was another example of his character – at least in my mind. After wearing the yellow jersey for 7 days, today was the first day Thor was out of the yellow. During the race he had an issue with is shoe and had to change shoes while on the fly:
After he changed his shoes, on the fastest stage yet, instead of just taking care of himself and getting back into the group, he instead turned water carrier for the rest of his team:
It’s this picture above, of the World Championship jersey fully loaded up with water bottles, that gives the best picture of Thor’s character in “wearing” it. Not because he hasn’t won, because he has and this Tour has been his best ever. But because winning hasn’t created a selfishness – but instead has given us more awareness of the kind of cyclist he is. I wonder if the rest of us, if in our best moments, would be as ready and aware of our chances to serve and help our team mates as Thor has shown he is?
Colette
dave
Titan
Amen!
Hi Tony — Great post. I’d really like to get hold of the image of Thor riding loaded up with bottles. Can you point me in the right direction? Thanks.
Hey Tom – I actually grabbed it as a screen capture from my iPhone as I watched the Tour de France streaming yesterday. You are more than welcome to grab the image from this post – but I’m afraid it’s not very high resolution (cause of iPhones screen size).
For a higher resolution pic – the hack/easy solution could be to replay the Tour stage 10 on a Mac computer full screen – and then hit Command + Shift + 3 to grab the whole screen. OR since you are with Cervelo – as NBC for a screen grab
Joe, Great blog post. Totally agree with your comments on Thor. He is a class act and well worthy of the rainbow jersey.
Thanks Andrew!
All Hail the God of Thunder!
Agreed – he’s been wicked impressive this year!
I love watching the tour, and have really enjoyed seeing Thor succeed. I’m not on a cycling team, but I am becoming more convinced that professional tour cycling (probably not just “professional” racing, but that’s all I know…) is one of the greatest team sports there is and the photo of Thor carrying water is exhibit A.
This is an excellent example of the type of person/rider/teammate Thor is — a true “quality individual”!