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That's a big relief 🙂
Always worrying when they don't show a replay, but it sounds like she's conscious at least. Horrible endo. Great race overall though, as with the men.
The lack of any sort of crash protection on those kerbs and gutters is criminal. Would have been so easy to mitigate against that. as boardman said, if you came off on that descent, you had no chance of finishing the race.
On a related note, i thought boardman was excellent.
Anyone know when the MTB is on?
I saw a bit of the road cycling but there was over 100k to go and didn't fancy waiting around that long!
Inter view directly after race with Jill Douglas and Boardman
To survive that crash without life changing injuries isn't a bad consolation prize
Fingers crossed the news stays good
I can't read or speak Dutch, need my mates GF to translate 😀 but I've just seen this via Twitter and think it's the girl from the crash
http://www.wielerupdate.nl/wielernieuws/37280/
Mods delete if I'm wrong
had to switch that off so the kids didn't see it...
I know it was a nasty landing but it was only someone falling off a bike, it's hardly going to scar them for life 😕
I must have watched too many downhill races as I kept expecting her to pick the bike up and get on with it, fingers crossed she's not too badly injured.
Google translate of link above:
21:47 - Annemiek van Vleuten is conscious after her heavy crash in the final of the Olympic road race. A terrible crash in the descent ended its golden aspirations in Rio de Janeiro. She went to the incident only in the lead.
Van Vleuten was with the American Mara Abbott jumped away from the leading group. The Dutch took the lead in the downhill. However, they crashed on a curve and lay motionless on the roadside. Chef de Mission Maurits Hendriks may confirm afterwards that Van Vleuten was to circumstances in order. They will be transferred to hospital. Anna van der Breggen Abbott finally managed to figure out. In the sprint she was supreme.
MarkBrewer - Member
had to switch that off so the kids didn't see it...I know it was a nasty landing but it was only someone falling off a bike, it's hardly going to scar them for life
I must have watched too many downhill races as I kept expecting her to pick the bike up and get on with it, fingers crossed she's not too badly injured.
You're a real treat aren't you?
MTB is on the very last day, I believe.
MarkBrewer - Member
I know it was a nasty landing but it was only someone falling off a bike, it's hardly going to scar them for life
I don't know Mark- I saw someone crashing endo from a bike, hitting what looked like back and neck on a high kerb, and then not moving. I'm 48, have crashed and broken bones many times, and I can tell you: I was shocked.
Yeah, couple of weeks away the MTB, I think. Cycling Weekly have a rough TV schedule for all the cycling events if you do a search for it.
Crash looked bad, but sometimes things look worse than what they are. The fact she wasn't moving was horrible. It's uncomfortable viewing watching stuff like that on live TV, you can only imagine what her family and friends felt. Hopefully she's OK!
That's good news. I was properly fearing something worse after seeing that.
Speaking as someone who broke his back doing an endo at nowhere near that speed, I can tell you that "picking the bike up and getting on with it" is the least likely outcome. Charmer.
I must have watched too many downhill races as I kept expecting her to pick the bike up and get on with it, fingers crossed she's not too badly injured.
Won't the full face helmet, goggles, neck brace, body armour and pyjamas hinder these girls on the climbs?
You win the insensitive and stupid prize for today.
so what that race tells us is that if the yank lass had risked more "life and limb" in the decent she would have won gold, a new low for the olympics. I'm out.
That's a wee bit melodramatic.
It's still 'just' descending on the road. It's nowhere near as dangerous as say 4x or DH or BMX. But if you go too fast you do fall off.
Safety issues with the kerb are just mitigation if someone did crash (and yes I do think there should have been some soft barriers there of some sort).
But throwing up a straw man that the loser should have gone harder on the decent is a bit low and inaccurate.
1) if it wasn't as technical, riders would go faster and take a similar level of risk and probably an equal number would crash anyway.
2) if she had gone quicker the chasers would have just gone harder in the closing km's, they always aim to sweep up the break in the last 100m, anything else is wasted effort and they need that energy to sprint each other.
Great race, fantastic route, hope she's OK and that lessons are learnt with regards to barriers.
I may be wrong but perhaps another factor is that she was possibly going rather faster than DH speeds at the time
What kind of speed was she doing?
What kind of speed was she doing?
1 or 2 mph too much, sadly.
1 or 2 mph too much, sadly.
Bugger.
Totally disagree with people criticising the decent. All the athletes knew the risks and made the choice to ride at a speed that was ultimately beyond their limits. The descent was perfectly safe ridden at a more sedate speed.
Fingers crossed all the crash victims from both races recover well, as regardless of whether the descent was or wasn't dangerous, no-one likes to see athletes getting badly hurt.
A bit of light relief!
http://road.cc/content/news/200063-twitter-abuzz-namibias-dan-craven-live-tweets-olympic-road-race-while-riding-it
The mtb is 20th and 21st August.
Last time I saw someone rag-doll like that we buried him a week later.
That was a shocking crash, and I still feel the chill of watching it.
It's good that's she's conscious. Let's hope that's not the last of the good news.
fifeandy - Member
Totally disagree with people criticising the decent. All the athletes knew the risks and made the choice to ride at a speed that was ultimately beyond their limits. The descent was perfectly safe ridden at a more sedate speed...
Wrong. It's sport. No one should be maimed or die for our entertainment. The organisers have responsibilities too.
If the IoM can manage to make a route safer, then so can Olympic organisers.
1) if it wasn't as technical, riders would go faster and take a similar level of risk and probably an equal number would crash anyway.
"Technical" means more bends requiring correct judgement of entry speed and line, so a higher probability that you'll get one of them wrong.
2) if she had gone quicker the chasers would have just gone harder in the closing km's, they always aim to sweep up the break in the last 100m, anything else is wasted effort and they need that energy to sprint each other.
True on a flat stage where it's peloton vs breakaway, but not true here where the race was split. If the first chase group had been going any slower than flat out, they would have been caught by the second chase group (Armitstead's).
I know it was a nasty landing but it was only someone falling off a bike, it's hardly going to scar them for life
Thanks for that. The last person I saw endo, landed on their head, broke their neck and died at the scene, despite me giving them CPR. I wouldn't want that broadcast on live TV.
This morning it was me who faceplanted the tarmac at 20 mph after hitting a pothole in a race. Just some road rash and a fine black eye. I hope she recovers as fast as I hope to.
And I too agree that the margin for error in the descent was too great. When the world's best (road) descender comes off, it's probably the course not the rider. I suspect slippery surface under damp tree cover. The kerb was just awful and instantly magnified any potential risk hugely.
Totally disagree with people criticising the decent. All the athletes knew the risks and made the choice to ride at a speed that was ultimately beyond their limits. The descent was perfectly safe ridden at a more sedate speed...
OK, on that basis, let's take all safety features away from F1: No run-off zones, no crumple barriers, no in-car safety features, no tyre walls, no gravel traps etc They'll be perfectly safe if they drive around each and every lap at 30mph.
Edit: Fingers crossed for van Vleuten. Let's hope she's OK.
It's good that's she's conscious. Let's hope that's not the last of the good news
This. Conscious is better than the alternative but there is a lot of finger crossing still to be done. Healing vibes.
1) if it wasn't as technical, riders would go faster and take a similar level of risk and probably an equal number would crash anyway.
Can't remember the last time I seen as much carnage on a single descent as what was seen in yesterday's road race. There's often the odd crash on wet descents, with a bit of road rash being the the worst of the injuries. You may occasionally get one on a dry descent. Yesterday, a significant proportion of race leaders crashed out, and in some instances suffered broken bones. And the roads were bone dry. Then a pretty bad crash in the women's race today.
It's their job to ride on the limit. That's how they win. Otherwise they wouldn't be very good at it and someone else would take their place. Race organisers have to take some responsibility for their safety by not putting them into situations where there is a high likelihood of injury.
"Technical" means more bends requiring correct judgement of entry speed and line, so a higher probability that you'll get one of them wrong.
Yes, but a sweeping bend taken flat out at 40+mph is no less technical than a switchback at 15mph, it's a race, they'll take every corner they can at the limit of their ability, which means at some point they will crash.
Just look at the Tour, how many of the crashes actually took place on horrible singletrack decents, and how many were on big wide (fast) roads, Froome coming off on a white line being the perfect example.
Can't remember the last time I seen as much carnage on a single descent as what was seen in yesterday's road race.
Any of the cobbled classics, pretty much any year.
The argument shouldn't be about technical difficulty, but safety. Those kerbs and ditches were horrible and needed attention, but riders crashing and getting road rash and broken collarbones is just par for the course
Statement just now: "She's stable, breathing and able to communicate". Not a lot of detail there 😯
Fingers still crossed here.
That decent could have been made a lot safer than it was. They could have put mini bails on the outside edge of all thoes corners with massive kerbs. Riders would still be penalised for going off line but would have had a much better chance of getting up and completing the course.
I'm amazed they didn't reassess that descent after yesterday's race - they saw the crashes and the injuries from the Men's event so it should have been a straightforward assessment to haybale the outer corners.
Good to hear that she seems at least basically OK, hope she makes a full recovery.
Personally I'm siding with Boardman - if he thinks that course was dangerous then that's good enough for me.
I dare say he knows more about road racing than the collective knowledge of the entire forum.
I'm actually quite angry because I looked at the road furniture and thought nobody can crash here and get up. This was way past technical, this was dangerous.
As said - it's a race, some very fatigued athletes at the limit of their abilities, there is an expectation that people are going to overcook corners. If you want good racing, then you want there to be at least the risk of this happening, if not a likelihood.
But when it happens, you want there to be a run off, or at worst a bit of torn lycra and road rash. Maybe even occasionally a collarbone - roads are hard. As well as the obvious crashes in the tour there were loads more where people overcooked corners and rode into the bushes or into people's driveways.
The issue here was no run offs and big, raised edge kerbstones meaning that even an innocuous off carried a high risk of harm. On one hand everyone knew they were like that and had the choice to ride more safely as a result, but I still think more needed to be done to protect those edges.
Is the TT course similarly furnished? I wonder if anything will be done before Weds?
That looks bloody horrible. If nothing else and she makes a full recovery no one should be unconscious upside down in a gutter in an Olympic event.
I hope she is fine but that looks like it could have gone horribly wrong landing on spine like that
I'm amazed they didn't reassess that descent after yesterday's race - they saw the crashes and the injuries from the Men's event so it should have been a straightforward assessment to haybale the outer corners.
According to the commentators, they hadn't even put back the netting that Porte went through...
Dutch media have reported she has 3 fractures to her spine and concussion, being treated in icu but no other information released as to severity of her fractures.
A course that maims some of the best riders, male and female, is a bad course.
The penalty for error should not be potentially career ending.
The riders are crashing at motorbike speeds with only a thin layer of lycra for protection.
@mikey and @soma thanks for the updates. Going to be a long few days Infear waiting for news
Personally I'm siding with Boardman - if he thinks that course was dangerous then that's good enough for me.
I dare say he knows more about road racing than the collective knowledge of the entire forum.
Yes, but he's not talking about the corners, he's talking about the kerbs and ditches. Some on here are arguing that the corners were the dangerous bits for causing crashes in the first place.
"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."