March 12, 2003

Cycling loses a rising star.: Andrei Kivilev becomes one of a very few cyclists to die in a race. This is bad news for many reasons, not least because the guy was turning into a legitimate Grand Tour contender. A sad day for the wheelmen.

posted by ahhgrr to other at 09:46 AM - 3 comments

I, like I'm sure many others, don't really follow cycling out side of the Tour de France. But reading about this (both before and after Kivilev died) has been very touching and somewhat difficult for some reason. I guess it's always a little different when an athlete dies while performing whatever their personal sport is. Hell, even Dennis Byrd like injuries are bad enough. Does anybody have any idea of how big cycling and Kivilev are in Kazakhistan? Is this like a major ordeal there?

posted by Ufez Jones at 10:51 AM on March 12, 2003

I searched for Kazakhstan news outlets and found kazakhstan.com, but the only stories (at this point) about Kivilev were from Reuters wires. One of the stories reports: He had not been wearing a helmet and went into a coma immediately. I've seen a lot of pictures of riders with their helmets hanging on their handlebars. I'm not going to say that they should wear helmets for the sake of setting a good example, but I bet this accident wakes some of them up. This story has more reactions (scroll down) from cyclists, including Lance Armstrong and David Millar.

posted by msacheson at 11:50 AM on March 12, 2003

I just can't believe they wouldn't wear helmets. I'm just a hobby cyclist and I know I reach speeds that could be lethal in the event of a crash. With the speeds these professionals reach, it almost seems suicidal, and I'm surprised tragedy such as this is not more common.

posted by justgary at 03:32 PM on March 13, 2003

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