The Dutch phenom crashed hard just off the ramp at the Woolongong Road World Championships Wednesday. The incident broke her elbow and almost broke the internet.
Watching Annemiek Van Vleuten come down the ramp in a cycling race usually means one thing: you’ll see her pushing the lead at the end. But at today’s mixed team time trial relay at the Road World Championships, something else altogether happened.
Footage from the early seconds of the race in Woolongong, Australia shows Van Vleuten pedaling hard out of the gate, then wham! She’s down.
Watching the footage over and over (and over and over again, as a lot of cycling heads have done today), it’s hard to tell what went wrong. She wasn’t riding in a super tight pack, it doesn’t look like she ran over anything, and no random airborne object appears to hit her.
Van Vleuten received treatment on site, and later landed in a hospital with a broken elbow. Her team says it still remains within the realm of possibility that she races tomorrow.
“Annemiek is allowed to cycle with this stable fracture, but the question is of course with how much pain that will be. We will see that in the coming days. We hope that Annemiek can still start, but that has to be justified,” Dutch team coach Loes Gunnewijk told road.cc, noting the team doctor will consult on the final decision.
What happened? That’s still anybody’s guess.
The champ herself tweeted that she didn’t know what caused it, but that knowing what it was “will not help or change my situation.”
Don’t know what happened but looks the tire exploded after I did hit the side of the road. So that was not the problem. Something caused I got out of balance, but what ever caused it: it will not help or change my situation. Now in the hospital. ???????? https://t.co/ApGAY4YITt
— Annemiek van Vleuten (@AvVleuten) September 21, 2022
The internet raged with speculation: gear or brake lockup (see Twitter thread), a rear derailleur malfunction, a chain drop, or operator error where Van Vleuten simply lost control.
Whatever the case, we still wouldn’t count the Dutch crusher out at the Women’s Elite road race on Saturday. It’s not the first time she’s gone down in a heap. And this time, her injuries appear to give her a lot better shot to get back up swinging.
