OLYMPIC CHAMPS MUGGED IN BRAZIL
Silver medals snatched from Paracycling trio
THREE members of Team GB were mugged of their silver medals and other possessions on the opening day of the Paracycling Track World Championships in rio.
Lora and Neil Fachie, both double Paralympic champions, and pilot Corinne Hall were left shaken but otherwise unharmed by the incident, which occurred as they made their way back to their accommodation.
Neil, from Aberdeen, posted on X: “We were mugged tonight in Rio, so sadly I’m not contactable by phone for a little while. We’re all OK, other than being shaken up. Passports, cards, some cash and our silver medals were all stolen. A sad way to end the day.”
The husband-and-wife team had won silver medals, alongside Hall and Matt Rotherham, in the tandem team sprint behind Italy on Wednesday.
British Cycling, which has a 29-strong team competing at the event, said: “The three riders are safe and well and are being supported by our staff both on the round and at home. We have raised the matter with the UCI, the local organising committee and the police.”
Neil won men’s tandem gold at the 2012 and 2020 Paralympics, while Lora won the individual pursuit titles in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2016, the latter alongside Hall.
The pair had been in high spirits days before the competition, both hopeful of a strong competition. A video posted by British Cycling showed the teams smiling as they prepared for the races ahead of them. Speaking to BBC Sport two days before the incident, Lora opened up about the struggles of juggling motherhood while competing, as well as making it to last year’s world championships in Glasgow just eight months after giving birth.
She said: “I don’t deal with failure very well, I know that, so it was just one knock after another and it took me to take a complete step back from it and change how we fed Fraser. Sometimes change is good and after that both of us started to thrive.”