Thankfully VdP was going so fast at the time that his spokes acted like a solid barrier to the hat! :)

But kidding aside, what an awfully malicious (stupid?) thing to do.

I'm guessing it was more stupid than malicious--seems like something a child would do "just to see what would happen." Doesn't mean she shouldn't face consequences for it, but it's just too odd to be anything but stupid.

Intent
 

Depending on which viewpoint footage you view ,it’s obvious there was real intent to get the hat in amongst the spokes/fork and the look on her face isn’t some naive childish giggle it’s more along the lines of ‘well I tried ‘ ,funny enough decades ago I went to Paris to watch the worlds cyclo cross which his father Adrie won and it was the first time I’d encountered the Dutch/Belgie/French business of throwing beer and spitting on the athletes as they passed [warning political content :- to paraphrase Clinton I neither inhaled nor partook ]

I agree - she just looked like a stupid person indulging a whim and ignoring what what the potential consequences would be. I have a 12yr old boy, and he wouldnt have done that, which says something.

Her lawyer comment didn`t age well....

"No right-thinking person would do something like that, right?”

From what I saw she's trying the "I had a few drinks, give me a break" defense which is not a strong defense.

MvDP got taken down a couple of years ago by fan detritus, right?

Make old girl ride down a hill on a bike and have someone put an aluminum bat in the front spokes. That'll cure it. While we're at it, use the bat on anyone who light flares or incendiary devices around bike races. That stuff is toxic.

It was clearly intentional and spectacularly stupid but I don't believe it was malicious.

As cyclists, we all know that if the cap had got jammed between the tyre and the fork, Mathieu could have gone over the bars, but I suspect she wasn't that clued up, maybe not even slightly - if she had been, she would likely have been scared to even try it, given the prospective consequences for her as well as for the rider.

Don't know why she did it, she probably doesn't either, especially now, but I really don't think it was with the intention of bringing the big man down. How you take it from there, though, is up to you.

When I first heard of this several days ago, in my mind's eye, I pictured a man as the culprit. #stereotyping Does this make me guilty of misandry?

Not sure I can follow this logic... Do something that could seriously injure or kill a rider in the middle of a crowd of spectators, but it is ok because it was done for fun?

I'm guessing the thought is similar, in an extreme way, to murder and negligent homicide.. the former was done with intent and the latter was a result of someone's negligence.. wasn't done on purpose, but the person is still held accountable.. certainly the lady threw the hat on purpose, but did she intend to harm the rider (maybe she did) or just thought "it would be fun"? at least that's my very uneducated understanding of negligence from watching some tv and taking a business law class.. so take it with a grain of salt.. ;)

the act was wrong and I hope she is held accountable for sure!

I respectfully disagree. If the woman had no idea a hat could send the rider over the bars, *what was the purpose of flinging a hat at his bike*?

If you watch the first video of the frame-by-frame slow motion, you can see she even timed the throw to ensure the hat hit the front wheel. It was intentional, malicious, and the old creep knew exactly what she was doing.

In my state I could make a great argument that anyone at a cycling event would have some knowledge of how things work and would know that tossing the hat AT the wheel would/could cause a wreck. Negligence and intent have an extremely gray line between them.

I saw an article a few days ago on a Belgian site that showed a different cell phone angle of the women. She actually walks up, looks left and right to see if anyone is watching her, then aims and shortarms the cap at the wheel. Clearly premeditated. The article also said that in Flanders, there is a specific law that says when a cap is thrown into spokes of a bike, the cap is considered a deadly weapon. This seems in order for a cycling nation like Belgium to have that one covered.