VICIOUS! From the video I watched (shown below), it is obvious that UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis sprinter Jake Keough intentionally crashed Rahsaan Bahati (Bahati Foundation) during the Dana Point Grand Prix criterium this past Sunday. Just look at the photo below in which Keough is caught for all the world to see SHAMEFULLY deviating from his line and turning his upper body (to be followed by his bike) roughly 45 DEGREES into his African-American rival.
Some have argued (without merit) that, because the race was overly-aggressive, (and apparently, Keough not able to defend position through speed or skill), the stymied sprinter from UnitedHealthcare was within his rights when he toppled the tall rider who, as a youth, had escaped from the gang-infested L.A. ghetto to become a champion professional cyclist (aka: a PRO).
What happened 15 laps prior to Keough's vicious swerve into Bahati is immaterial when it comes to assigning blame for the incident in question. Bahati was trying to move onto the wheel that Keough was following before the sprint, because he intended to win the race and dedicate it to his Latino teammate Jorge Alvarado, who died the day before when he was hit by a car being driven in an illegal street race. Granted, what Bahati wanted was the spot behind Keough's own teammate's wheel, but is that not the nature of field sprinting? A fierce but clean battle for position, followed by an explosive stampede towards the line!
What happened 15 laps prior to Keough's vicious swerve into Bahati is immaterial when it comes to assigning blame for the incident in question. Bahati was trying to move onto the wheel that Keough was following before the sprint, because he intended to win the race and dedicate it to his Latino teammate Jorge Alvarado, who died the day before when he was hit by a car being driven in an illegal street race. Granted, what Bahati wanted was the spot behind Keough's own teammate's wheel, but is that not the nature of field sprinting? A fierce but clean battle for position, followed by an explosive stampede towards the line!
It would seem that Keough lacked something besides common sense that day - perhaps strength, or bike-handling skills - because he couldn't defend his position and at some point would have had to have ceded it to Bahati. But instead of doing the Pro thing and surrendering the position he could no longer defend, Keough, like a desperate little despot, knowing the war was lost but hell-bent on destroying everything he and his teammates and their supporters worked to build...Keough crashed his rival and marred the conclusion of the race!!! Even if "Bahati was going all unnecessarily aggro to get in the UHC train," (to quote a random forum poster) that still doesn't give Keough the right to knock down Bahati, or any other rider for that matter - because as we see, many other riders - innocent and undeserving of their fate, just like Bahati - were made to painfully suffer because of Keough's irresponsible, vicious, hateful move.
So UN-PRO.
The alternate video (taken from beyond the S/F looking AT the last turn), which is embedded in the VeloNews web-article on the incident, is inconclusive and should not be relied upon for determining the cause of the crash. The ICTV feed highlighted in the article, but unknown to the masses until now, tells a different, more somber story: a vicious thug savagely attacks a respected professional who happens to be an African-American leader in his community, and knocks him to the ground along with nearly a dozen other innocents, in a high-speed bike crash during the Dana Point
GP Criterium.
GP Criterium.Previous video thanks to Inside Cycling TV.
Posts
