| broken collarbones. Immediately after that turn on the second lap. Hanson who was riding ahead of Reinhart, heard a crash behind her. When Rein- hart didn't show, Hanson stopped. Then she heard Reinhart alert the other Saturn riders by radio to stop so the team could regroup. When Reinhart finally appeared after dusting herself off from the spill, the team was almost two minutes behind the main pack--a huge gap to overcome. Dismissing her teammates' despair, Reinhart said, "We can do this." The Saturn train surged through the next five laps, making up about 20 sec- onds a lap. "It was one of those things you thought was impossible," says Hanson. "But the next thing you know we see the main pack in front of us and we caught them with three laps to go." On the final ascent the pack scat- tered, leaving Reinhart with just two |
| teammates for the last leg. Normally content to sit back and rest for the final push. Reinhart made a bold stand. "Nicole Reinhart's in the lead!" shouted PA announcer Michael Aisner. " I don't know if it's a mistake . . . "His words were drowned out by the cheering and bell-ringing of the crowd. If she was ahead now, no one could catch her. "It had been the most exciting race I'd ever seen," says Mike Reinhart. "After falling and being so far behind, Nicole was now in a position to win." Even rivals like Tina Mayola, the Autotrader.com star who'd been bat- tling Reinhart for the lead in the Pro Cycling Tour standings all season, cheered her. "When I realized she was going to win, says Mayola, "I thought, Right on, Nicole, you deserve it." As the lead pack of a dozen riders hit the descent, Mayola, nervous about the teep grade and dangerous left turn ahead, cranked on her brakes. At the turn Reinhart went around her, then drifted left with the pack to pre- pare for the next right-hand turn. About 75 yards from that turn, and less than a mile from the finish, Rein- hart hit something--a lip in the pavement, a manhole cover, it's still not clear--and lost control of her bike. "I heard her wheel or pedal scraping the curb," says Mayola, who was right be- hind her. "The next thing I saw was her hitting the tree." Horrified, Mayola and Laura Van Gilder of the Charles Schwab team de- bated what to do. "It was the worse thing we'd seen,' says Mayola. "But in cycling you always go on. Everyone crashes and gets back up. So we continued on." After Pam Reinhart saw Mayola cross the finish line first, followed by Van Gilder and a few others but no Saturn riderrs, she hurried uphill. Then she saw Sonye, who had stopped at the crash site before being chased off by officials. Sonye was crying hysterically. Pam started running. By the time she reached the crash site, paramedics had been pumping her daughter's chest for several minutes, to no avail. |
| Nicole Reinhart was pronounced dead of extensive internal injuries at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., at 1:27 that afternoon. When the news was delivered over the P.A. system at the start-finish line, the men lined up for the start of their race, dis- solved in shock and anguish. Their race was canceled, and Fraser gave up his chance at the $250,000. Soon the heartache would be felt half a world away in Sydney, where many of Reinhart's friends and team- mates were competing. "It was like being hit on the head with a hammer," says German cyclist Petra Rossner, a Saturn teammate. "The Olympics had been such a big thing, but after Nicole died they seemed so small." Three days after Reinhart died, Nothstein won an Olympic fold medal in the match sprint. Within days the Trexlertown cycling community experienced its worst tragedy and its greatest moment. Under any other cir- cumstances there would have been a welcoming party for Nothstein when he arrived at the airport the following Sunday. Instead 1,000 people filed into a white tent on the velodrome infield to recall the life of another local hero. As devastating as Nicole's death has been, Mike and Pam have been over- whelmed by the support of the cycling community and touched by gestures like that of Van Gilder, who added her $3,000 in prize money from that race to the $250,000 that BMC donated to start a Nicole Reinhart memorial fund to support junior cycling. "I'm proud to say that Nicole has done more for cycling in death than most people do living," says Mike Reinhart. Among other things, Nicole's foun- dation has provided $30,000 in seed money to start a Saturn under-23 team, for which her 18-year-old brother, Timmy, now rides. "My goal is to go to the Olympics," says Timmy, who start- ed track racing nine years ago. "If I get there, Nicole will too. She always said 'Don't worry, I'll take care of you.' And you know what? She kept her word." * |
| a rider honors her memory |
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| "I'm proud to say that Nicole has done more for cycling in death than most people do living." |