Van Vleuten, who has tweeted that she “will be fine”, wasn’t the first cyclist to eat it on this very descent.
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Van Vleuten had broken away at the front of the women’s road race along with American Mara Katherine Abbott and looked to have paved the way to victory when she broke away on the final descent down the treacherous Vista Chinesa. The peloton had already dwindled down to a tiny selection of five riders with compatriot and race favourite Anna van der Breggen among them.
Despite Van der Breggen winning, the race was marred by a horrific looking crash for Van Vleuten.
Team USA’s Linda Armstrong won gold in both 2012 and 2008, but she’s turning 43-years old and just carried a heavy workload during the road race. Most of all super disappointed after best race of my career.
News of Van Vleuten’s condition was slow to come through, and the rumour mill ran rampant. “She is fully conscious and her reactions are adequate”.
While she has suffered three spinal fractures, her injuries are not thought to be as bad as first feared.
Sadly, following her tweet, Allen was subjected to abusive messages from a handful of men on Twitter. “Knowing that this chance is 1 in 4 years doesn’t make it easy”.
The Dutch road racing cyclist Van Vleuten was born October 8,2016, is also riding for Orica-AIS.
For viewers everywhere, Van Vleuten’s crash was a awful thing to witness.
Boardman, who was commentating for the BBC at the time, said: ‘I am past commenting – I am angry about it.
“I went down and had a look at the course and saw those edges. It’s good to hear that Annemiek is OK”.
She was reeled in just 150 meters from the finish line by van der Breggen, Sweden’s Emma Johansson and Italian Emma Longo Borghini as the riders streaked along Copacabana.
“I still cant quiet believe it”.
British cyclist Lizzie Armitstead said that seeing her rival lying motionless on the roadside was a “very hard thing to pass”. “I couldn’t even see who it was and then an ambulance came flying by me with its sirens on and I was anxious”.
“One guy has been persistently calling me sexist for about 18 hours now. It’s all very freakish”. She tried to stop the slide, but flew headfirst over the handlebars of her bike and hit the curb.
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She posted another update on Twitter on Monday.
