“I am now in the hospital with some injuries and fractures, but will be fine”, Van Vleuten tweeted.
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“She was doing the ride of her life and was on fire but yeah, staying on the bike is part of the game and if some riders misjudge things that’s unfortunate”, he said.
If we ignore that Van Vleuten is one of the world’s top female cyclists or that two men, Geraint Thomas and Vincenzo Nibali, crashed the previous day on the same descent, then this is some top advice.
And in van Vleuten’s crash, the high curb on the side of the road appears to have worsened herinjuries. “Most of all super disappointed after best race of my career”, she had said.
She was admitted to intensive care for three small fractures to her lower spine after the crash just six miles from the end of the 137km race, which she was leading at the time.
Johansson called the crash “horrendous”. Abbott finished fourth after being caught in sight of the finish line.
The crash put Abbott 40 seconds in the lead with less than 10 kilometers left in the race.
Vos initially thought it was Anna van der Breggen who had fallen.
But unfortunately GB fell outside of the medals on both occassions as Geraint Thomas crashed on the risky descent of the Vista Chinesa circuit on Saturday, and on Sunday Armitstead finished fifth in what was an absorbing race. “The fact she missed Olympic gold will haunt her for some time to come”.
But for Armitstead she knew it was going to be tough, and speaking after the race she said: “I stuck to my tactic”. “I am so happy with the gold”.
“It’s been a very hard couple of weeks”, she said. “It was a victory to be here for me”.
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Armitstead had declared in a statement posted online on Wednesday that she is “a clean athlete” and that “it hurts me to consider anybody questioning my performances”.
