As part of my continuing coverage of Crazy Slovenians (being ¼ C.S. myself), I’m sorry to report the death of one of the craziest (in the best sense, as usual). Back in 2008 the Basement saluted the winner of the Race Across America, Jure Robič. Last week Robič was fatally struck by a car while training on a mountain road near his home. He was 45 years old.
His obit in the New York Times painted a picture of a man who not only revelled in the self-punishment of ultralong-distance competitive cycling, but would undergo a Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation in the process.
“In race, everything inside me comes out,” [Robič] said. “Good, bad, everything. My mind, it begins to do things on its own. I do not like it, but this is the way I must go to win the race.”
Because of sleep deprivation during the nonstop races, which can take as long as nine days to complete, he would sometimes hallucinate. According to the Times:
More than once he leapt off his bicycle to do battle with threatening attackers who turned out to be mailboxes. Once he imagined he was being pursued by men with black beards on horseback—mujahedeen, he explained to his support team, who encouraged him to ride faster and keep ahead of them.
Primož Kališnik, a Slovenian journalist and a friend of Robič, summed him up thus:
“He was two personalities within one body. … One was very polite and nice when he was not on the bike. During races, he was absolutely the most unpleasant person you could imagine.”
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