Dislocated finger? Not a worry for Canadian in cyclocross world championships
Michael van den Ham calmly 'fixed' the dislocated finger and carried on racing.
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Bike racers are a tough lot, but Canadian Michael van den Ham took it to a whole new level.
Early in Sunday’s elite men’s UCI world cyclocross championships, Van den Ham went down in an early race pileup.
When the four-time national Canadian cyclocross champion went to remount his bike, he discovered one of his left fingers wasn’t pointing in a normal position.
Instead, it was jacked at a grotesque, unnatural 45-degree angle.
The 30-year-old from Halifax, Nova Scotia, calmly went to business.
He grabbed the finger, pull on it abruptly, and slotted it back into place.
The adrenalin of the moment certainly helped, but the pain must have been searing.
“Sometimes you just got to snap out of it. My race was actually good barring this one … mishap,” he said. “But this will always be the race where I dislocated my finger and put it back in. Still not sure what I was thinking, but it worked.”
And it was all caught on live TV. Van den Ham went on to finish 33rd.
— Scoober (@Scoober84) February 6, 2023