Annemiek van Vleuten injury update: Conscious and stable
By John Buhler
Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten suffered a scary crash on Sunday in the Women’s Road Cycling event. She seems to be conscious and stable after the wreck.
Next: 50 greatest Summer Olympians in history
A scary moment occurred on Sunday during the Women’s Road Cycling event in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While leading the race roughly halfway through the event, Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten took a devastating spill coming around a curve.
Van Vleuten went head-first over the handles bar on a curve going well over 30 miles an hour. Sadly, she was not able to continue the race and needed emergency medical attention following her spill. Her Dutch teammate Anna van der Braggen would take home Olympic gold to the Netherlands after van Vleuten’s crash and American cyclist Mara Abbot ran out of gas near the finish line to finish with out a medal.
While she didn’t take home Olympic gold, it seems that van Vleuten’s medical condition has improved. According to the cycling’s international governing body, the International Cycling Union deems that “van Vleuten was ‘conscious and able to communicate'”.
Van Vleuten was competing in her second Summer Olympics. She competed in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China but did not earn a medal for the Netherlands in that summer games. With van Vleuten being 33 years old, this could very well be her final Summer Olympic Games.
When asked about her teammate’s untimely and brutal fall, 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Women’s Road Cycling van der Braggen said, “It really shook me when I saw Annemiek crashed in the road. If you see her like that, it changes everything.”
Perhaps van Vleuten’s devastating cycling wreck inspired van der Braggen to press as hard as she could down the stretch to overtake the tiring Abbot to bring home Olympic gold to the Netherlands for her country and for her fallen teammate van Vleuten?