Friday 10 September 2010

Sayonara Shoya-san


(image from www.hondaproracing.com)

It's so sad. Another beautiful young man, full of life, full of fun, highly spirited and chock-full of riding talent, has gone.

Shoya Tomizawa died tragically last weekend after a shocker of a crash in the Moto2 race at Misano. The guy was 19. That's several years younger than my own son. I can only imagine how his parents must feel. No parent ever expects they will outlive their children. I've found myself getting teary about it many times over the last week – maybe because I'm a mother and I'm feeling some sort of connection with Shoya-san's mother, or maybe because it's just so awfully sad to see such passion, such potential and such promise cut short.

Shoya Tomizawa - the young man with the oh-so-impish grin... By all accounts he was a lovely young bloke. And passionate about his sport.

Mr and Mrs Tomizawa, you must be so proud of what your son achieved at such a young age. I am so very very sorry for your loss.

Sayonara, Shoya-kun. You will be sadly missed.

My heart also goes out to Alex de Angelis and Scott Redding – unfortunate and unwilling players in this terrible tragedy. I can only imagine the impotent 'what-ifs' that may be torturing them, and I sincerely hope avenues are available to them, to enable them to talk about the incident; to let out the pain so that it doesn't fester...

Guys – sometimes, shit happens. And that is one of the most awful facts of life.

RIP Shoya Tomizawa.

1 comment:

lemmiwinks said...

I know what you mean, sometimes it's just a little to close to home.

Was listening to "Conversations with Richard Fidler" on ABC radio last week and he was talking to the founder of Stillbirth Australia. She was detailing what happened etc (she was 36 weeks pregnant when the baby died) and I couldn't hack it! Had to turn the radio off. :-(