It would seem that premature celebration is a big problem. Last week’s victim was Slovenian cyclist Luka Pibernik who thought he’d won stage five of the Giro d’Italia.
Passing the finishing line, Pibernik held his arms aloft, in triumphant “woo hoo!” fashion, not realising (his radio was broken) that there was a whole lap to go. He was swiftly overtaken by a scrum of cyclists who weren’t handicapped by having their arms in the air. In the end, the Colombian cyclist Fernando Gaviria won and Pibernik came… Second? Third? Nope. Pibernik came 148th.
I suppose this could be viewed as the cycling version of that Oscar gaffe where they read the wrong best film out. Please let this be a lesson to everybody that premature celebration can strike at anytime.
It’s absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, unless it was filmed and the footage was shown all the over the world. Only the blackest of hearts wouldn’t feel sympathy for Pibernik.
Perhaps he could take comfort in the phrase: “It’s better to have celebrated and lost than never to have celebrated at all.”
