#but that is heavy guesswork based more on *absence* than anything else

[batsplat]

OOH I am not the anon who first asked for a post about Casey & Jorge’s overall relationship …but if you are so moved I would b V interested in reading one 👀👀👀 lmao Jorge is my favorite alien bc he cracks me up (mostly unintentionally, but I do think as he got older & more settled in himself he’s actually surprisingly witty) but also takes me to previously unknown depths of despair (I just read the quote from him about how if he has a son he will do everything in his power to make sure he doesn’t end up a motorcycle pilot & I got so sad I had to like…lie down). WEIRD SET UP FOR THIS QUESTION SRY but I just watched Assen 2013 where he races 36 hrs after breaking & getting surgery on his collarbone (insane. They are all just…insane) and this sent me off googling motogp major injuries which has lead me to a question I was not expecting to have: WHY IS DANI PEDROSA SO INJURY PRONE OH MY GOD???!!!??? Is it bc he’s like…so small??? Did he have bad luck??? Was he on fuck ass teams with messed up bikes???? I’m realizing Dani is the alien I actually know least about so when I find out wild facts like this about him I’m like 🤯🤯🤯

as always, thank you sm for what you do <3 you are a poet and a scholar and a Mother to many <3

this ask is sooooooo sweet and it's mainly gone unanswered because i've been trying to think of a better answer than 'he just got injured a lot'. luck of the draw unfortunately!! i do think it's partly a height thing but i also don't have any great sources for that... he has talked about wanting a more robust body

but yeah. he really was injured an insane amount, and it cost him a serious shot at several championships. 2008, 2010, 2013... and that's just the one where he wasn't already carrying some serious early in the season. this graphic is obviously quite popular

so yeah. unfortunately it's just like that - big part of the genetic lottery and massively influences success. so you've got dani who didn't crash much but got injured extremely easily, and on the opposite end of the spectrum you've got someone like marc who could afford to crash way more because his body allowed him to weather more blows. there was an interesting piece about a related topic (whether all the motocross training is worth it if these guys keep getting injured) from 2020:

and from later that piece:

idk, i do think stuff like that is important to keep in mind. not JUST in the direct way of 'wow these injuries really fucked dani over in xyz season' but even just... the fundamental question of how much you can get away with pushing in every race, every practise session, qualifying etc - because of what the cost might be if you crash. risk management is such a key thing in the sport and it's like... the game is already unfair from the start... idk it's always interested me how all these somewhat intangible factors play into perception of talent, in ways people don't really like to acknowledge. 'talent' is such an artificial construct anyway, so circumstance-based, so arbitrary in how it's measured, but stuff like this is a good illustration of that. if such a thing as talent is even a meaningful concept, then dani had a lot of it - but he didn't have much in the way of luck