SLC Crit drama after the race

Looks like things got heated after tonight’s race!!!
https://instagram.com/stories/critdrama/2884095985916455937?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

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Looks pretty crazy. I saw justins insta post about and the velonews article. This is not a good look for either team regardless of who is to blame.

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Yeah I’m sure more video will come of both what happened in the race and after. From what I’ve seen so far it looks like there was some contact in one of the corners. If it’s as Corey claims why would he be so crazy mad? There has to be more to this incident. But as to what happened after, that shouldn’t have happened and while I believe both parties should pay the consequences whoever threw that first blow should be leaned on harder. From early reports it was Cory who threw the first punch. To make it even more dramatic they pulled themselves, the rest of the team dropping the victim card. For a team that is known to not be afraid to initiate contact racing and openly say that just racing that is kinda weak IMOO

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Legion and dirty racing. Name a more iconic duo.

Legion, after having drama multiple times with multiple people and teams.

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The clip popped up on my IG feed (I don’t follow Crit racing) and it’s interesting to see there’s a lot of anti-Legion rhetoric. Just purely from the short clip of that corner, does it not look like the rider diving the inside line in the USA jersey hits Corey’s elbow with his elbow thus starting the chain reaction?

“According to Hernandez, Cory Williams’ explanation was he lost control out of the corner, which caused him to veer the US elite criterium champ toward the curb.”

All sounds a little weird. Hernandez also says Cory threw the first punch after the race. Something is missing here.

Legion seem to have had a bad run of PR the past 12 months. The late payment of prize money from their event, now this.

Cory definitely loses the front wheel, he was always going to veer left from that moment to stay upright. Agree it’s weird. Whether he just hit a patch of gravel/questionable tractiin, or lost the front for another reason is unclear.

After seeing the way legion seems to ride, I am not surprised to read about a situation like this. You try to aggressively hold control of races in a physical manner, you are going to come up against people that resist that.

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Hernandez tried pushing Cory out of position. Cory had the wheel and the position. Cory did well to save the crash in the corner.

Apparently Justin threw the punch. But Hernández didn’t need to roll up on the whole team either, especially since he caused the chain reaction that caused the crash in the first place.

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I don’t have Instagram so can’t see the video. But is the gist of it that the Williams brothers are not Best Buddies with Hernandez?

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I can’t see the video either, but if they exchanged in fisticuffs with their race numbers still pinned on surely it will result in some disciplinary measures like suspension of race license?

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Hernández was fined $500 and suspension recommended.
Justin was fined $250.

Both were kicked out of SLC day 2.

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Didn’t Specialized throw a bunch of money at Legion? Can’t imagine they’d be too happy with a big blue at the end of a race resulting in one of their guys throwing punches.

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What are you even supposed to see on that Instagram story? I just see the start of a race and then a crash shortly after.

It also plays in a tiny window. Is there no way to make the video fullscreen?

I admit to constantly finding the Instagram interface baffling.

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So Justin throws the first punch, and gets the lower fine? Sounds about right for USAC. Gotta make sure you don’t mess with the money pot.

Legion are bullies. They always have been. And just like a bully, they get angry when somebody stands up to them. They’re not good for American cycling, they’re a joke and just another way of bringing down cycling in America.

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Justin threw the first punch. What other info do you need?

I think what we’re seeing is people waking up to Legion’s true colors. They post videos all the time about pushing people into gutters and laugh about it, or literally head butting other racers. And for a while most people put up with it because they were going to “save cycling in America.” People wanted to believe in their message. But after the umpteenth time that videos like this pop up, people realize that they’re not good for cycling. People are realizing that hey, this probably is t the best way to grow the sport.

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Their amateur, unnecessarily aggressive style of racing was always going to end badly.

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After initially thinking they were “kinda cool” and onboard with what they seemed to be doing I quickly stopped following them on social media. The racing style and comments always left a sour note with me, then you had this prize money stuff, and the extravagant self promotions, it all seemed to be about them. This negative headlines seem to have grown and grown.

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It reminds me of bench clearing brawls in pro sports, egos and personalities will clash at some point. Especially with money on the line, at the end of the day it’s racing. They both took aggressive lines that almost caused each other to crash. So imo they’re both at fault and need to grow up, and not act like little babies.

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