A Dutch cyclist, Annemiek van Vleuten, crashed spectacularly near the end of the women’s road race at the Olympics on Sunday.
Advertisement
That all changed in a fraction of a second.
Van Vleuten overcooked a corner on the Vista Chinesa descent and then somersaulted over her handlebars.
Immediately after the race, the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, said in a statement: “Ms van Vleuten is conscious, able to communicate”. “I am now in the hospital with some injuries and fractures, but will be fine”, van Vleuten tweeted.
“It was a horrendous crash”, said Johansson, who added a second silver to the one she won in Beijing in 2008. We knew it was way past being technical; it was risky’.
“I thought we were not going to catch her”, she said.
It didn’t appear to do much good.
Nibali’s coach, Davide Cassani, said that the Italian broke his collarbone in the fall.
Geraint Thomas of Britain and Nelson Oliviera of Portugal also hit the pavement.
With just 150m to go to the finish, Abbott was passed by Van der Breggen, Johansson and Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini, who took the bronze medal, denying the American a place on the rostrum after all her hard work.
Sailing past her crumpled teammate, Anna van der Breggen suddenly realized she was the only hope the Netherlands had of defending its gold medal in the women’s Olympic road race.
“It looked pretty bad”, van der Breggen said.
The descent to the Copacabana was considered tricky and treacherous by commentators. “For a auto tire, it doesn’t happen until you get enough water under the wheel, but the tires they’re using are so thin that it doesn’t take much [to cause a crash]”.
The course was widely regarded as the toughest in Olympic history, even before the first riders set off on it.
Abbott that hit the final flat 10km out in front alone and rode bravely, though clearly exhausted, as the trio of Anna van der Breggen, Emma Johansson and Elisa Longo Bourghini bore down on her.
The race was frenetic, relentless and full of attacking drama from the start, but only when the bunch came on to the coastal road, with winds buffeting them from the Atlantic did a significant split happen, with around 40km to go.
The Boulder, Colorado, rider ended up 100 meters short in an Olympic event featuring cycling’s biggest names.
Advertisement
“Everybody wants to win. Yeah, everybody’s taking risks”, men’s gold medalist Greg Van Avermaet said.
