Right after the race, Bart Wellens had some pretty harsh things to say about the men on the podium:
His arch rival Wellens found it more difficult to deal with the loss. “Even though I had the best legs of the season I couldn’t do much more than what I did. The jersey went to the wrong person, he shouldn’t have won it even though he’s a teammate. He deserves to be on the podium but the other guys don’t,” Wellens said. He described the crash as inevitable and said how he felt afterwards. “The quad touched that block, and I couldn’t get away anymore. Afterwards I had a lot of pain in my neck and couldn’t throw my bike,” Wellens explained.
Wellens’ comments have brought down some severe criticism around the net (Cyclocross Babble, Patrick O’Grady, etc). First, if, during the second lap, a camera toting 4-wheeler strikes an unweighted plastic traffic barrier and sends it into your path and causes you to crash and break your wrist during the friggin worlds and then you chase back to fourth place, you might have an argument that you were the fastest guy out there that day. Second, if some journalists were asking you for your comments about said events moments after you got off your bike, you might still be a little miffed and say something less than charitable.
So give the guy a break, mkay?
Oh yeah, don’t forget that Wellens was amost taken out later in the race when fans pressing against the course barreirs caused it to collapse right in front of him. He managed to keep rubber side down that time though.
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