I took this picture of Julien Absalon at the Windham round of the World Cup. 4x World Champion, 2x Olympic Champion, 17 World Cup Wins and countless other cross country victories make him a living legend. In Windham he had a string of mechanicals and dropped out of contention, but he made a huge effort to climb back from the middle of the pack to the top 10 by the end of the day. He was in full flight and rode this short technical section with the remarkable skill you'd expect from a rider of his stature.
Legendary for sure! I was excited to see him on home soil a few weeks ago but never got the chance. I scanned for red, white, and blue... nothing. He showed up milking a broken wrist or thumb or something and never started. Bummer. My other view of him was at the World Cup finals in Schladming Austria where he was so far ahead in points he really didn't even need to show up. He dogged it, I think... and then properly gave up so he didn't show up below people on the results sheet. Luckily, some New England kid showed up and demonstrated to Monsieur Absalon how to ride a bike properly. He was in the top 3 for a while before dropping back to a still impressive 8th. I hear he did show up for the "after" party though.
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