While taking the lead in the women’s Olympic cycling road race, Dutch cyclist Annemiek Van Vleuten crashed in what earlier seemed to be horrific from the camera angle.
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Television pictures showed Van Vleuten slamming into the road and a stone kerb after losing control of her bike when leading on the final descent toward Copacabana beach with around 15km of the race remaining.
Towards the bottom of hill Van Vleuten appeared to lock her wheel and flew headlong over her handlebars into a bank – lying motionless in a twisted heap as Abbott sped by.
She sustained three small fractures to her spine and is in intensive care at a Rio de Janeiro hospital.
“It looked pretty bad – I thought she was dead”, van der Breggen said.
Fans and spectators were extremely concerned about Annemiek after her crash left her unconscious on the side of the road.
Her Dutch team-mate Anna van der Breggen won the race but then spoke of her shock at riding past her stricken team-mate.
Please Wait while comments are loading. Her speed was said to be around 50 miles per hour before crashing, and she was on her way to gold.
American Mara Abbott, who was chasing Van Vleuten when the accident occurred, said there was something “weird” about the road where the Dutchwoman went off.
The four Australians in the road race are all teammates of van Vleuten at Orica-AIS. Nibali suffered a fractured collarbone and Henao was reported to have fractured part of his pelvis.
“We knew this was way past this being a technical, this was unsafe”.
The 33 year-old played down her injuries when she took to Twitter later Sunday to reassure her followers she was “fine” and expressed her disappointment at crashing out of the most significant race of her career to date.
Ch-ch-check out the terrifying crash (below) as we continue to send good vibes Annemiek’s way.
However, it sadly ended on a sour note when the race leader Annemiek van Vleuten suffered a nasty crash going round one of the corners.
On Saturday Nibali was also leading the men’s race when he crashed on the same section of road.
“I went down and had a look at the course and saw those edges”.
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Armitstead admitted the build up to the Games – when it was revealed she had missed three drug tests and faced a ban from competition – had been the darkest days of her career.
