Could this be a curse?

Cycle Surgery are the fourth business in Lower Stuart Street to come on our bad side within two short weeks. Look at the shirt. Doesn't that look like the rainbow jersey that only the top cyclists will ever wear?

To wear the rainbow jersey, you have to be the reigning world champion in any bicycle racing discipline. However, I have heard of a curse which seems to plague these champions (list adapted from Wikipedia):

1. Tom Simpson (UK) won the world title in 1965. During the following winter (Jan/Feb 1966), he broke his leg skiing.

2. 1970 world champion Jean-Pierre Monseré died wearing the rainbow jersey in March 1971.

3. Laurent Brochard, the world champion of 1997, became involved in a doping scandal a year later.

4. The 1987 winner, Irishman Stephen Roche, who had won the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia in the same season, missed nearly the entire 1988 season with a knee injury.

5. The 1990 winner, Rudy Dhaenens of Belgium, had no results in 1991, and was forced to retire shortly after with heart problems.

6.The 1994 winner, Luc Leblanc of France had a injury plagued 1995 season with very poor results, winning only one small race.

7. The 2003 winner, Spaniard Igor Astarloa, switched to the French team Cofidis for the 2004 season which almost immediately suspended itself from racing due to doping allegations against several members of the team. In response to this, Astarloa switched first to the Lampre team, and then the Barloworld team. He has had a very quiet career since his 2003 victory.

8. The 2004 World Road Champion Óscar Freire developed a saddle sore during the following season.

9. In August 2004 British professional cyclist David Millar was suspended for two years, stripped of his 2003 World Time Trial Championship jersey, and fined $1,600, after confessing to the use of EPO in 2001 and 2003.

10. On 24 September 2006, Italian Paolo Bettini won the Rainbow Jersey in the World Road Race Championship in Salzburg, Austria. Eight days later on 2 October his older brother Sauro died when his car struck an obstacle and overturned into a ditch. He himself had a few accidents in the beginning of 2007 season (Tirreno-Adriatico 2007) and technical problems (in E3-Prijs Vlaandereren his chain snapped).

11. On November 26, 2006, while wearing the rainbow jersey, Isaac Gálvez died during the Six Days of Ghent, following a horrific crash into the upper barrier surrounding the indoor track.

12. The 2008 World Road Champion Alessandro Ballan was diagnosed with CMV near the beginning of the 2009 season, and as a consequence missed the spring's classics and the Giro d'Italia, his home tour. As a result he was in poor form for that year's Tour de France, and only made a proper appearance once, on stage 19 when he unsuccessfully broke away near the end of the stage.

13. By having a rainbow jersey in their window, Cycle Surgery may be inadvertently putting a curse on their bikes.