“L’an dernier, j’avais gagné quatre courses d’affilée (Flèche Brabançonne, Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, ndlr). Cette fois aucune. C’est le sport… “, a conclu Gilbert …
“Last year, I won four straight races (Brabantse Pijl, Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège). This time none. This is sport….”
Via RTBF
Hero Analysis For Julius Kusuma
The convulsions across Europe and America in not seeing Gilbert storm the ardennes dressed in Belgium’s National Colors has left editors, fans, bike companies in disbelief. Toothaches, colds, sniffles cannot explain away this season for Gilbert. Give us drugs!, Give us bribes from his rivals they shout! Give us at least the foul stench of bad luck by broken steerer tube, a wild horse on the course or a collapsed Easton Tubular against some poor canine’s ribs.
In the bar near Hero Headquarters, young and old Heroes ask if Gilbert had won all of 2012’s finishes what kind of cataclysm would have befallen Het Koninkrijk België! Such glory would have been too much! If Tommeke and Philippe had swept the table as it were, Signori Cancellara’s victory at the Strade Bianche would have been lost in the March dust cloud that seems so long ago. Gilbert is no machine but merely a man and answers such silliness with a line that could only be written by a Hero, “C’est le sport… ” Indeed!
