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Russell Crowe challenges gossip columnist to a bike ride
by Neka Sehgal - September 6, 2009 - comments
After gossip columnist Annette Sharp poked fun of Russell's eating and smoking on a bike ride, the star challenged her to a 12-mile race through Sydney
Sydney, September 5 -- An Australian journalist, Annette Sharp, got more than what she had bargained for when she poked fun at Russell Crowe’s diet and workout habits by publishing an article in Sydney's Daily Telegraph screaming ‘Smokes and fatty foods the fitness regime for Rusty’.
Slighted by the caustic jibe on his eating and smoking on a bike ride, Crowe got his back at columnist in a rather novel manner by defying her to accompany him on one of his bicycle rides with a video camera in toe.
"Get on your bike," his spokesman told her. "Russell wants you to go riding with him. Are you ready to die?"
With no other alternative but to accept, the mother of three donned her helmet and met up with Crowe at dawn for a 12-mile bike ride through Sydney.
"When you make a living throwing stones," she said afterwards, "you expect that one day someone is going to lob one back. This was that day."
The race through the streets of Sydney
She soon realized that she had bitten off more than she could chew. Before long, the Gladiator star mingled into the early morning traffic. While Sharp waited for the traffic to clear, Crowe was nowhere in sight.
During the ride Russell told Annette, "This is actually not a workout. This is just something I love doing in Sydney," he explained, "and LA.”
The video coverage traced the gossip columnist struggling to keep up, while Crowe breezed smoothly through the streets of Sydney. During the ride at one point she also fell off the bike.
Speaking after the event, Sharp stated, "I was sliding exuberantly down the track when, with a thump, I came off the seat and landed painfully on the crossbar. This was surely it — his victory moment, with me sprawled in the dirt."
Crowe, the perfect gentleman
Crowe, better known for his fiery temper, was a thorough gentleman, even tending to Sharp during her fall.
Sharp ended up appreciating Russell for his fitness and endurance, conceding that besides being in excellent shape Russell was “gracious, concerned-the perfect gentleman as he rolled up my trousers to check on my knee”.
Crowe was chivalrous and later admitted that Annette was a better cyclist than the film director Baz Luhrmann.
He told her, "[Director] Baz Lurhmann holds the record for being the worst cycling tourist we've ever taken for a ride," he said. "You are twice the man Baz is…on a bicycle. I don't know how you'd be on a film set."