Cyclists blast course after horror crash
Second smash on hill where Briton fell
AN OLYMPIC cyclist was in intensive care last night with spine fractures after an appalling crash in the women’s road race.
Annemiek van Vleuten was leading when she lost control on the final descent and flew over the handlebars of her bicycle.
The crash left the Dutch 33-yearold unconscious in the gutter.
Twenty-four hours earlier three competitors in the men’s road race had fallen on the same Vista Chinesa hill on the outskirts of Rio, including Britain’s Geraint Thomas.
Last night Netherlands officials said van Vleuten had regained consciousness and was able to communicate.
‘Annemiek went through a total CT scan and is stable now,’ said Cees Rein van den Hoogenband, the team’s chief medical officer.
‘No internal bleedings or damage. She will stay in intensive care for the next 24 hours. She is fully conscious and her reactions are adequate. She also suffers from three minor fractures in her lumbar spine.’
Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali was also leading when he crashed on the descent on Saturday.
Chris Boardman, an Olympic cycling champion, condemned the course. ‘I am past commenting – I am angry about it, he said. ‘I went down and had a look at the course and saw those edges. We knew it was way past being technical; it was dangerous. The people who designed the course and said what safety features were needed had seen it as well and left it. ‘We knew the descent was treacherous. I looked at that road furniture and thought, nobody can crash here and just get up. It is really bad and that is what we have seen today.’ Former Olympic hero turned jockey Victoria Pendleton was also severely critical. ‘That’s probably one of the worst crashes I’ve ever seen on the road – the way she hit the kerb and the angle of her head. ‘It definitely looked very, very frightening indeed. You can have tough, but I think there were safety issues involved with that particular descent. We saw imagery before the men’s road race with some of the gutters on the side and then a sheer drop off the side of a mountain, basically. A very steep, steep incline. ‘When I saw the images close up I couldn’t quite believe a road like that would be included in a road race course – when people are really putting everything they have on the line for Olympic glory. You don’t want to have to ask them to put their lives in danger to achieve it.’
The race saw Lizzie Armitstead’s Olympic dream end in despair. All eyes had been on the Briton who had missed three drugs tests and had resorted to the courts to be allowed to compete in Rio.
The 27-year-old world champion and pre-race favourite was dropped by the leading group on the final climb of the gruelling race and was unable to regain contact.
She looked shattered as she crossed the line in fifth place well behind winner Anna van der Breggen of the Netherlands.
Within moments of the finish, Armitstead, who was watched by parents John and Carol, was defiant, insisting: ‘I did exactly what I wanted during the race – I didn’t panic in the climb and limited my losses but I could never follow the best climbers in the world up there. I never gave up.
‘My climbing is something that I have been working on for months now. I knew what I was capable of and I knew what I had in the legs. I did the best that I could. I’m just knackered.
‘To be honest, I can’t feel sorry for myself – this is sport and that’s what it is about. You open yourself up to judgement and I never gave up. For that I can be proud of myself.’