I've heard 25 pounds, I've heard 30. Either way, that's ridiculous. Did he really have an extra 30 pounds to lose? If you'd made me guess how much AussieGnome McGatestarter weighed, I probably would have guessed 30 pounds. But here's the real question: Is 4X really that different from downhill? I obviously don't know how much Graves weighed before or after, so for the sake of argument we'll just call his current weight "x."
(Editor's note: I don't know Jared Graves personally, and I just made fun of his height semi-anonymously on the internet, so I'm going to pass on the opportunity to pretend like we're besties and I'm not going to call him "Gravesie" for the remainder of this article)
If being competitive at World Cup downhill requires Jared to weigh "x" pounds, and being competitive in World Cup 4X requires Jared to weigh "x+30" pounds, than how on earth did anyone ever expect downhillers to compete against BMX meatheads in 4x?
It was always going to be a separate event. Eventually, riders were going to specialize. Two-sport athletes like Gee, Cedric, and Graves (and Steve Peat in Vigo in Earthed 3) were anomolies, and eventually they disappeared. The numbers don't lie. Eventually dominant 4X athletes were all going to look like this:
And THAT is why eliminating UCI World Cup 4x in favor of the XC Eliminator event was the best idea ever...
Yeah, I know, the resolution on that font is terrible. That's sort of my fault, sort of Blogger's user-interface's fault. Squint hard and deal with it.
