OPINION | Are cyclists tougher than football players?

We often see cyclists who after heavy crashes, try to continue as soon as possible in contrast to football players who roll on the field and the laying on a field for a long time after any contact. But are cyclists really much tougher compared to football players?

This opinion article has been written by Lukáš Ronald Lukács.  

Well, it's not quite like that. And here I will write you one word about why it is not so. Winning. They both want his team to win. The fact that the cyclist will be rolling in the path of his team will not help.

The peloton will leave him and he himself will lose the opportunity to achieve success. But when a football player does it, it can help his team. He can drag out time, interrupt the rhythm of the game, for example, when they are not doing well. Or, for example, convince the referee that the opponent's team receive a yellow or red card.

This absolutely does not apply to cycling. Pretending to be injured does not help your team in any way. In cycling, pretending not to be injured can help. If you finish bruised despite abandoning seeming the more sensible option, you can survive to ride another day.

You can help your team by bringing bottles, pacing in a bunch, or recovering enough over a few days that you can even consider going for a win again yourself. Unlike football, there are no substitutions. Continuing on despite initially being injured can ultimately help your team. We can see these situations mainly at Grand Tours.

Both of them just try to make sure that either they themselves or their team as a whole wins. That's the whole thing, but overall it certainly gives cyclists more respect from the public than football players.