Friday, August 03, 2012

Lost in Translation?



Great Britain's gold medal hero Philip Hindes has courted controversy by admitting he deliberately crashed in the first round of the team sprint.
Hindes, along with Sir Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny, triumphed in the competition at the velodrome on Thursday night as they beat the French with a new WR time of 42.600.

Two things are interesting about this story, firstly the back that Hindes admission hasn't been repeated since on the BBC but secondly and possibly just as important is context. He was clearly joking but I suspect that Jill Douglas had a director shouting in her ear at the time and didn't get his German sense of humour.

"So I crashed, I did it on purpose just to get the restart, just to have the fastest ride. It was all planned really," Hindes told the BBC.
"When that (wheel skid) happens you can lose so much time. My only chance was to crash and get the restart.
"I think they knew I'd done it on purpose. We were speaking yesterday, that if anything happens someone has to crash. So I did it."