I'm back home after over a month away, first at the
Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where we had a pre-Worlds
camp, then in Stuttgart, Germany, where I raced in the Team Sprint event
at the elite World Championships. Unfortunately I crashed in the race
and Team USA was DNF. Actually, I crashed four times in the last four
weeks! I think the story is best told as a limerick. Please read on:
 
 
When I first took the trip to out west*
I was prepared to go ride with the best
But my first effort behind
Turned out to be a grind
As my body was of skin undressed
 
In a high speed effort on the track
I didn't hold anything back
But a glue job would fail me
And in slow-motion detail we 
Observed my old body go smack
 
The concrete track literally burns
As Dr. Tortland at Sports Med would learn
And yellow, brown or pink
We all lose our ink
With a few dermal layers unturned**
 
Indeed I was totally raw
The trainers stared, jaws dropped in awe
>From the way that it look-ed
You probably could cook it
Or freeze it, then later slow-thaw
 
Then deep fry or filet-mignon it
Or roast it then put A-1 on it
Call your buds for a meal
Tell them it was good veal
And that you had quite slowly done it
 
The treatment was ever so good
They patched me up as well they could
I even remember
A hyperbaric chamber
Michael Jackson would have understood
 
But I eventually ran a high fever
A one hundred and six degree cleaver
To a hospital bed
Confined, dripped with meds
Was this un-happy overachiever
 
Stuck indoors with no entertaining
It could be sunny or snowy or raining
I was not aware
And I couldn't care
About ever returning to training
 
One day the mark on the thermometer
Was finally lower than the gas-heater
I still had a brain
I could even train
If I kept check on the Tiemeyer's speedometer
 
And although I'd some calories burned***
My sprinters legs quickly returned
Worlds would still be alright
Said the coach late one night
>From the team I had not yet been spurned
 
To Stuttgart we happily flew
Blissfully unaware of the brew
The clouds that would shroud me
Had only allowed me
A brief respite, a pause for review
 
The first day we were on our bikes
In broad daylight disaster would strike****
I ran into a pole*****
Almost fell in a hole
My teammates suggested a trike!
 
The next day we rode on the track
Ow! More skin lost off my back******
I slipped off the boards
I was winning awards
For how to do everything whack
 
I thought bad things [like crashes] happened in threes
But the one that would bring me to my knees
Hadn't even happened yet
On a day I won't forget
The gods I would finally appease
 
The race day******* had at last arrived
Of sleep I had not been deprived
I was keen, calm and ready
My nerves were all steady
My confidence fully revived
 
I was ready to rock the lap 3
That my teammates had handed to me
After all I'd through
At my big World's debut
Tell me why was this happening to me?
 
But somehow I'd fallen again
The feeling was beyond mere pain
After four weeks of agony
And all the antagony
My composure I could not maintain
 
The splinters removed one-by-one
Crashing on wood - it's no fun!
Was I really that bad?
Could I be that damn sad
And how had this horror story begun?
 
Hadn't hurt myself since '99********
I felt I was riding right fine
But what can you do
When Fate comes to you
But sit back, share a bottle of wine?
 
Now back home resting at much lower speeds
Smiling maidens attending to my needs
[feeding me grapes, etc.]
What's the upcoming plan
For this broken young man?
>From this point how does one proceed?
 
Well, the past is the past is the past
The sting will fade, it will not last
I like to attack
And like Arnold I'll be back
[hopefully! :-)]
And like always I'll be at full blast!
 
*three-week pre-Worlds training camp in Colorado Springs
**or, whatever your nation, you'll lose your coloration, if you've been
sufficiently burned
***I lost about 12 pounds that week. Only after returning home and
eating a lot of chocolate have I now begun a return to my old weight.
****it must be admitted that I was at the back of the pack and the pole
was below waist-height, but it still hurt!
*****Lance Armstrong-style - the pole clipped my handlebars and I went
over
******at this point there was hardly a corner on my body that wasn't
covered in TegadermT 
*******August 3rd 2003 Team Sprint - results on www.bahnradwm2003.de
 
********That's when I crashed at T-Town and tore my rotator cuff. Of
course I've had some minor spills since then, but nothing like this, and
not four times in a month!