Good luck this weekend to… uh… this guy.
I took this the night before the Zolder World Cup. Foolish was the only thing that I could help to feel as I squared up with my camera while he rode the rollers. There were two or three teenage girls that were waiting in line to get his autograph. But maybe it wasn’t foolish at all that I was feeling, maybe it was something closer to what a fan-boy feels at a comic book convention, or one of those guys that travels to Vegas each year to meet, in person, the porn stars he has always…er…idolized. No, that couldn’t be right.
But, then again, this was Zolder and I was standing before The World Champion.
I left smiling, thinking, this is pretty cool. No one is standing here and I got to take his picture, with film. It only got awkward later when we found we were staying in the same hotel as the World Champion. And I found this out by riding the elevator to the third floor with him. “Ohmygodohmygoditstheworldchampion.” I thought about waiting for the next elevator and then decided against it and crammed myself into the elevator with he and his handlers. He wears a REALLY HUGE wristwatch. In case you were wondering.
The scene the next day was even funnier when we kept making eye contact at breakfast. It was one of those points where you start to get frustrated by the coincidences, or just tired from them… “Ok, I get it, you’re going up to get some toast too. I’ll wait here at my table until you’re done.” And just like that I’m over my man-crush. I’m sick of looking at him in this hotel and I wish he would go away so that the rest of us (and everyone else in this hotel can go back to doing whatever they were doing…)
Then, a few hours later he goes on to sprint it out with K. Pauwels in a gritty, dirty display of what it means to race cyclocross. And in losing — with one swift punch to his handlebars as he crosses the finish line in second — I’m in love with him all over again. Damnit. How did that happen?
I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like this is going to be a good one.
