Looks like things got heated after tonight’s race!!!
https://instagram.com/stories/critdrama/2884095985916455937?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Looks pretty crazy. I saw justins insta post about and the velonews article. This is not a good look for either team regardless of who is to blame.
Yeah I’m sure more video will come of both what happened in the race and after. From what I’ve seen so far it looks like there was some contact in one of the corners. If it’s as Corey claims why would he be so crazy mad? There has to be more to this incident. But as to what happened after, that shouldn’t have happened and while I believe both parties should pay the consequences whoever threw that first blow should be leaned on harder. From early reports it was Cory who threw the first punch. To make it even more dramatic they pulled themselves, the rest of the team dropping the victim card. For a team that is known to not be afraid to initiate contact racing and openly say that just racing that is kinda weak IMOO
The clip popped up on my IG feed (I don’t follow Crit racing) and it’s interesting to see there’s a lot of anti-Legion rhetoric. Just purely from the short clip of that corner, does it not look like the rider diving the inside line in the USA jersey hits Corey’s elbow with his elbow thus starting the chain reaction?
“According to Hernandez, Cory Williams’ explanation was he lost control out of the corner, which caused him to veer the US elite criterium champ toward the curb.”
All sounds a little weird. Hernandez also says Cory threw the first punch after the race. Something is missing here.
Legion seem to have had a bad run of PR the past 12 months. The late payment of prize money from their event, now this.
Cory definitely loses the front wheel, he was always going to veer left from that moment to stay upright. Agree it’s weird. Whether he just hit a patch of gravel/questionable tractiin, or lost the front for another reason is unclear.
After seeing the way legion seems to ride, I am not surprised to read about a situation like this. You try to aggressively hold control of races in a physical manner, you are going to come up against people that resist that.
Hernandez tried pushing Cory out of position. Cory had the wheel and the position. Cory did well to save the crash in the corner.
Apparently Justin threw the punch. But Hernández didn’t need to roll up on the whole team either, especially since he caused the chain reaction that caused the crash in the first place.
I don’t have Instagram so can’t see the video. But is the gist of it that the Williams brothers are not Best Buddies with Hernandez?
I can’t see the video either, but if they exchanged in fisticuffs with their race numbers still pinned on surely it will result in some disciplinary measures like suspension of race license?
Hernández was fined $500 and suspension recommended.
Justin was fined $250.
Both were kicked out of SLC day 2.
Didn’t Specialized throw a bunch of money at Legion? Can’t imagine they’d be too happy with a big blue at the end of a race resulting in one of their guys throwing punches.
So Justin throws the first punch, and gets the lower fine? Sounds about right for USAC. Gotta make sure you don’t mess with the money pot.
Legion are bullies. They always have been. And just like a bully, they get angry when somebody stands up to them. They’re not good for American cycling, they’re a joke and just another way of bringing down cycling in America.
Their amateur, unnecessarily aggressive style of racing was always going to end badly.
After initially thinking they were “kinda cool” and onboard with what they seemed to be doing I quickly stopped following them on social media. The racing style and comments always left a sour note with me, then you had this prize money stuff, and the extravagant self promotions, it all seemed to be about them. This negative headlines seem to have grown and grown.
It reminds me of bench clearing brawls in pro sports, egos and personalities will clash at some point. Especially with money on the line, at the end of the day it’s racing. They both took aggressive lines that almost caused each other to crash. So imo they’re both at fault and need to grow up, and not act like little babies.
When you’re the best at something, that’s what people look to do. Lots of people have been aiming to take them down for quite a while. A number of reasons for it, and first and foremost when you dominate, people don’t like it. There are plenty of teams out there in sports that people despise which just amounts to not more than envy. That’s a big part of it, IMO. These guys created and promoted a brand off on their own. Lots of people do that in lots of different fields, and a lot of other people don’t like that. Of course it’s all about them. That’s what marketing is. But they’re out there competing… go beat them. That’s the only way to make them less relevant.
All these other folks with the “bad for American cycling.” Give me a break. The publicity behind Legion has plenty of people energized for bike racing in Southern California and no one else has near the following they do in the sport.
Most of the criticisms just come off as gatekeeping - something cycling is well known for - and sour grapes, IMO.
You are right in many ways. Dominance isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you look at something like Golf with Tiger Woods, the difference I see there is that despite him getting 98% of the attention all the time when he was in his pomp, what it did was made pretty much every golfer re-evaluate their game. They started hitting the gym and over time the level of golf became so much better, far more players were capable of winning.
From afar, the danger with the US cycling is that it seems more like it’ll turn people off? (not sure if thats the case).
Unfortunate.
Now. I need to hear what they are talking about.
Because many say “Justin threw the first punch” but Hernandez seem to be very aggro right before the punch was thrown. None of un were there. We have no idea what really happen but just a bunch of short videos of specific areas of the race.
There seem to be a lot people upset about Legion. I dont follow crit, but it seems mostly everyone who do it rides very aggressively. Why is that an issue now?