The Crack in Armstrong's Comeback

By now you've all heard about Lance Armstrong's broken collarbone. He was involved in a pileup in the opening stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in Spain and was flown back to Austin, Texas, where he will undergo surgery on Wednesday.

Doctors said at first that it was not very serious, but it turns out it was "angulated and displaced," according to Armstrong's manager Mark Higgins. Armstong has, surprisingly enough, never broken a clavicle - despite the fact that it is the most commonly broken bone in the human body and is by far the most common serious injury for cyclists.

"Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days," Armstrong said in his Twitter, by way of explanation.

It's a pain with which I am all too familiar.

Two summers ago, just two months into my racing career and fresh off double stage wins and an overall title at the Norfolk Classic, I crashed hard on a training ride and busted the holy hell out of my right clavicle. It displaced into my trapezius muscle and I had to have a pin put in. It was awful. I didn't ride a bike for three months, couldn't drive, could barely feed myself for a couple days and couldn't cut up my own food for weeks.

It doesn't seem like Lance's break is that bad, though, because he's still going to race the Giro, according to his manager Johan Bruyneel, and he doesn't think it will affect his Tour de France at all.

I did some reading on surgical repairs to broken collarbones - about 1 percent of all breaks necessitate surgery, but that figure is much higher for cyclists, who need their clavicles to heal as quickly and efficiently as possible. Recovery can be much quicker with surgery - most impressively, six-time world pursuit champ Rebecca Twigg broke her right clavicle less than two weeks before the 1995 Worlds, had it repaired with a titanium plate, and set a new world record 11 days after surgery.

What a badass.


Image courtesy of VeloNews

Five Ways Obama Has Changed Campaigning

Presidential campaigns are always a big show. There’s the 24-hour breaking-news cycle, there’s scandal, there are attack ads. But this election cycle was something special. We witnessed the birth of a new type of campaigning – led by the Obama campaign’s embrace of high-tech.

He Used the Web
Many businesses and media outlets have grasped the power of the Internet. Most politicians haven’t. Obama was the notable exception this election cycle – but from now on, politicians will need to use the web to win.

“The internet is a great platform for politics,” says Pete Giangreco, senior partner at Chicago’s political powerhouse The Strategy Group. “YouTube can keep you accessible, and blog posts keep you in touch with your supporters.”

YouTube is just one way Obama rose above his rivals. The official videos the campaign created for YouTube were watched for 14.5 million hours. Buying that kind of time on broadcast TV costs $47 million.

And most of his fundraising was done online – of the $750 million raised through the campaign cycle, $500 million of it came through online donations.

And, as Giangreco says, it keeps the campaign accessible – when attacks on Obama’s association with controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright were revisited throughout the campaign, voters could easily re-watch Obama’s speech on race. To date, over 6.7 million people have watched the 37-minute speech.

He Integrated the Media
One reason for Obama’s success is his approach to integrating media. He wanted his media managers working together across platforms.

“From the start, this campaign was organized so the forms of media would not be in different silos,” says Giangreco. “It was a very integrated campaign.”

This integrated approach allowed the Obama campaign to make important announcements on the official website and send millions of text messages to supporters – notably Obama’s announcement of Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick, delivered via text message.

He Changed the Math
Giangreco says clinching the nomination hinged not on much-hyped Super Tuesday as much as smaller caucus states, where a few volunteers could make a huge difference in every county. “And that required changing the math.”

“Caucus states gave us the advantage. While other candidates were focused on primary states, we looked at Idaho and Utah, caucus states where we could make a huge difference with fewer supporters.”

The earliest, and arguably most important, example of this strategy came in Iowa.

“In Iowa, we knew most voters were older, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. We also knew these caucuses were small, maybe 20 people at a time. So if we got some younger Dems to come out and support us, we could sweep more counties with limited resources.”

He Used Volunteers
The Obama campaign’s approach to volunteers was original in presidential politics. Obama made call lists and scripts available for download from the website – making it easy for volunteers anywhere to make calls from home.

“It was training, training, training,” says Giangreco. “We never stopped with training.”

This campaign was the only one where volunteers could make calls, throw parties, and organize fundraisers – all without ever meeting an Obama staffer in person.

He Organized for the Future
All this organization won’t be left on the campaign trail. Obama plans to use this “standing army” of volunteers to help pass legislation and promote volunteering efforts. The new White House website change.gov was recently rolled out, along with a personal message from Barack Obama imploring visitors to engage in volunteer work.