Yayabiko

Impossible you say?  Men of such grace and talent don’t have accidents like normal folks?  This is how the MotoGP world felt today when Valentino Rossi rolled in the gravel pit, his bike a shattered mess behind him, holding his shin in clear agony.  A fractured tibia.

It isn’t just that Rossi has been the best rider for the last 10 years — arguably the best rider the world has ever seen, redefining modern racing with 9 World Championships, not missing a single race in a staggering 230 races — it’s something more than that, rather, while there are certain inscrutable undeniable laws of physics, they just don’t seem to apply to Rossi.

So what Rossi was in fourth place with 2/3rds the race complete.  He’ll just go faster, winning the race on the penultimate lap.  No matter he gets pushed wide at the start and has to pass 14 riders to win.  Consider it done.  Why going faster and cheating the laws of physics doesn’t occur to the other riders is a bit of a mystery; Rossi makes it look that easy.

Motorcycle racing is a dangerous sport, people fall, people get hurt, but for as dangerous a sport as it is, few people actually break bones larger than quarter.  This is reserved for the truly untalented or the truly unlucky.  When Rossi got hurt, it was always superficial, the way Superman’s blue suit might get a slight tear or his hair would muss, but the man of steel alway remained intact.  Minor injuries like a tweaked shoulder from a dirt-bike fall or a hurt pinky finger, his trademark boyish grin turning into a cartoon pout displaying his hurt boo-boo for all the cameras to see.

So what does it mean when Rossi turns mortal, a god getting grounded, like discovering the Dalai Lama has bad gas?  Miracle after miracle on the Sunday asphalt has turned even the harden cynic into a believer.  Rossi is different.  Only he’s not.

On his home track, the track he knows best, the one closest to his house, where he can sleep in his own bed and drive to the race, the place where he was completely unbeatable for seven consecutive years, reality has rushed up and smacked us all on the helmet visor at a 120mph, removing our hero from our lives for 7 long weeks.  Let’s hope none of the magic dissipates and he’s back cheating physics before we know it.