Apparently, this kid is the next big thing, the great American hope, and the great white hope of professional cycling all rolled into one even though he’s only eighteen-years-old. Apparently, he’s got incredible talent when it comes to riding a bike, although considering his father was a successful professional cyclist and his mother an Olympic athlete, I’m not so sure if I’d call what this kid has talent.
(As a useless aside, I guess I’ve always been challenged by labeling a person’s ability to pedal a bike as talent. To me, it’s a simple motor function and the size of each person’s motor is first determined by (a) genetics, followed by (b) repetition. In my opinion, talent is not just an innate genetic trait, but the result of hours upon hours of practice, such as having a head for race tactics, or archery, or brain surgery. If I handed Kenny Picco a scalpel and asked him to perform a vasectomy on Ron Jeremy, he just couldn’t do it. Flip side of the coin, if I handed a bike to a kid with Olympian parents and asked him to ride as hard as he could, I’m sure he’d beat the rest of the neighborhood kids in a race. Is that talent? I’m not so sure.)
Apart from that, the young Mr. Phinney strikes me as an arrogant bastard based on his comments from the interview. This is the first, one in which he references the national kilo record which, as we all know, is the epitome of cycling achievements:
“People have been trying to beat that record all their lives, and I blasted it out pretty easily,” Phinney said matter-of-factly.
So this douche bag (if interested in reading about other cycling douche bags, feel free to click here) is only eighteen and his first order of business is to belittle other cyclists’ attempts? Granted, I would imagine his world consists of a cycling bubble from which he never really has to step and that means the time he spends off the bike is probably time spent listening to other people in his camp showering him with incessant praise--especially the brat’s mother, Connie Carpenter. Get a load of this:
Connie Carpenter was so thrilled by her son’s success in Mexico that she put together a shrine to Taylor in the dining room of their two-story home, which sits quietly on one of Boulder’s leafy streets near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
A shrine? Is this kid supposed to be enlightened?
Not much of a resemblance. This chubby guy’s a lot better looking.
Shrine’s aside, here’s another of Phinney’s ripe quotes as he refers to playing soccer during his childhood spent in Italy:
“I was one of those under-10 kids who was the best player on the team and scored all the goals,” Phinney said.
Is this douche the picture of modesty or is it just me? This is the kid who will no doubt grow up into that guy, the guy who’ll no doubt try to steal your girlfriend/wife after you just finished shaking his hand and congratulating him on breaking the national kilo record for the sixth time. I can practically hear it in my head, exactly what this douche would say to a friend who just returned from the men’s room during a black-tie banquet for Phinney hosted by Phinney’s mom.
“Josh, listen, your girl Crystal wanted to go down on me while you were taking a leak so I figured why not? I know you’ve been trying to seal that deal for weeks but I blasted it out pretty easily, huh? I think my mom took some pics when she was under the table, so I would get on Facebook in a few days if you want to check those out.”
Eighteen-years-old and already an egomaniac. I guess that’s what happens when your mommy calls you on your cell six times a day to tell you how totally awesome you are and you spend as much free time as you can with Lance Armstrong. This kid should go on a few rides with Pozzato. I get the feeling he wouldn’t be as impressed as everybody else in Phinney’s camp. Maybe the Italian would do us all a favor and shove a few canolis up his ass.
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