Opinion: Dylan Groenewegen’s comeback is just as significant as Fabio Jakobsen’s, it should be recognised as such
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Updated 04/07/2022 at 20:06 GMT
Dylan Groenewegen's Tour de France stage victory, a day after that of Fabio Jakobsen, ought to mark the end of the saddest of stories, which began almost two years ago. The crash at the 2020 Tour of Poland was horrific, but we should not forget that there were two victims, not just one. It seems that both men have now fully recovered. Both should be allowed to move on.
'That's the gap!' - Blythe and McEwen analyse Groenewegen win on Stage 3
The headline statement is not to suggest, or an attempt to create, a hierarchy of suffering.
Because it is not the place of any of us to do that.
What it is, however, is an invitation to recognise that the life of more than one young man was fundamentally altered on that fateful afternoon one year, 11 months and five days ago.
Since the finish-line crash on stage two of the 2020 Tour of Poland, almost every one of the umpteen articles written referencing the accident has focused on the rehabilitation, recovery and return to competitiveness of Fabio Jakobsen.
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‘It’s a four-up!’ – Groenewegen snatches Stage 3 victory in photo finish
To an extent it’s easy to see why. It was Jakobsen’s face that hit the barrier at 80 kilometres per hour. He was the one who suffered a crushed palate and upper respiratory tract, a “craniocerebral trauma” and had to be put in a coma, close to death. Of the two riders involved in the crash, he was the one who had to undergo many surgeries and months of physical rehabilitation.
It is also far too simplistic to focus only on Fabio.
Because, as Jakobsen has said, he also does not remember what happened. His conscience is completely clear. He knows he was not in any way culpable. Psychologically the world has collectively told him: “you are the victim.”
Jakobsen took part in a WorldTour race the following June. He finished second in a stage of the Vuelta a Espana a year and one week after the event, winning one two days later. His maiden Tour victory in Nyborg was a wonderful thing to witness.
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‘It was a hard time’ – Groenewegen on bouncing back from Jakobsen crash after Stage 3 win
Dylan Groenwegen, in contrast, had more than the book thrown at him. For having “deviated from his line and committed a violation of the UCI regulations” (their words) he was banned from racing for nine months.
At least, if not more harshly, he was also brutalised in the court of public opinion, and in the town square that is social media.
“There were such concrete and serious threats that we called in the police a few days after the crash,” Groenewegen told Helden magazine in January last year.
“The following days and weeks the police guarded our door. We could no longer spontaneously leave the house. If I wanted to go outside for a moment, there was an officer by my side so that nothing could happen.”
Groenewegen was never a monster, and did not do anything monstrous. He was a young man who made a sporting mistake, the consequences of which will likely live with him forever.
Even without being on the receiving end of such cruelty, it is impossible to imagine he would not have been badly affected by the incident.
Unquestionably his racing was. Although he won two bunch sprints at the Pro-level Tour of Wallonie last season, his best placing in a WorldTour race was fourth. This from a rider who had previously won on the Champs Elysees.
This season he still was not competitive, or close to the sprinter he had been before. Four wins, fine, but none of the value he had grown accustomed to, even if one, a select sprint at the Tour of Hungary, did see him beat Jakobsen to the line.
Physical fear is often what finishes the career of sprinters, long before they lose their leg speed. In the case of Groenewegen, unusually, it was not concern for himself that prevented him from braving the bunch sprint battle at 100%, but a sense of the damage he might inflict on others.
Until today, it was conceivable it would prevent him from ever returning to the heights he had known before. The sport is better for the fact that he has. His win was wonderful too.
Although those who witnessed it live, or who have seen it since, will never forget what happened in Zabrze, Poland, on August 8, 2020, Groenewegen’s victory at the Tour de France, a day after that of Jakobsen, ought to draw a line under it.
At the very least this should be the last time we discuss the wider significance.
Those involved have recovered. The lessons that needed to be learned (hopefully) have been. All that is left is for the two riders at the centre of it to be allowed to move on. Let them be bike racers again.
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