Olympic cyclist ‘live-tweets’ his whole race

Technically Incorrect: Namibia’s Dan Craven has a Twitter feed that purports to relay his amusing thoughts during a cycling race. He claims his beard is doing the tweeting.

I knew the headline was true, because it was on Twitter. More precisely, it was on the official Twitter Sports feed.

It read, “Namibian#Olympics cyclist Tweeted through his entire race.”

Immediately, I pictured a heaving human with one hand on the handlebars and the other clutching his iPhone.

Then I looked at the small print.

Beneath Twitter Sports’ headline that would no longer pass muster on Facebook was a clarification: “An Olympic cyclist ‘live-tweeted’ his entire race.” (See those extra inverted commas?)

The man in question was Namibian cyclist Dan Craven. His Twitter feed did, indeed, have many tweeted observations posted during his race. Some were even amusing.

For example, “Now I’m craving a rusk. I’ll give a pair of my socks to anyone who brings me a rusk at the finish.” (A rusk is a South African/Namibian specialty, a hard dry biscuit that Craven loves — and tries to avoid — because of its carb and sugar content.)

I did rather adore, “Cross wind. Bugger that. Drinks anyone? How about a caipirinha. #gutter.”

I was sure that this couldn’t have been Craven himself tweeting.

But then I espied: “I have magical powers. Front of the peloton. You forget my beard can tweet for itself.”

Craven does have a substantial growth. Could it be both substantial and versatile?

Craven came clean. “My girlfriend Collyn Ahart is a genius. Her day job is marketing strategy. I came up with the idea last night but had no idea she would make such a splash,” he told me.

Her tweeting process, he said, was very simple.

“She just started having fun and ended up having a blast,” Craven told me.

You, though, will wonder how his race went. I rushed to the results page for his men’s road race. It read: “Dan Craven: DNF.”

Dan Craven did not finish. He told me it was the hardest course he’d ever seen. He suffered over the mountains and cobbles.

“I always knew I would struggle to finish, as I’m not a pure climber,” he admitted. There again, only 63 of the 144 starters did finish.

Craven did, though, still got a result.

His latest tweet shows that he got the very thing he craved the most: rusks. – cnet.com