The Olympic road cycling races were the most dangerous in recent history
Crashes make races exciting. But the course in Rio was potentially lethal
By J.T.
CYCLING has always been a dangerous sport. The tally of racers who have perished is into the hundreds. Fatal accidents occur in training and in competition, on the road and on the track, in the peloton and among the leaders: the list of fallen riders includes world and Olympic champions. Unfortunately, the rate of deaths has not slowed. Wouter Weylandt, a talented Belgian cyclist, was killed in a crash during the prestigious Giro d’Italia in 2011; three professional riders have died in minor races this year. Any compilation of recent collisions in the Tour de France will show you that a career-ending injury—or if the rider is lucky, a mere broken collarbone and tarmac burn—remains just a wobbling wheel away.
Professional cyclists clip into their pedals each day knowing that these risks await them. Fans do not hope for such accidents, but they do expect them. The possibility of a likely winner suddenly crashing out of a race adds to the tension: the lasting memory of this year’s Tour de France will surely be of the eventual champion, Chris Froome, jogging toward the summit of Mont Ventoux after damaging his bike.
By this standard, the men’s and women’s individual road races in Rio, which took place over the weekend, were two of the most dramatic contests in recent memory. Held on the winding coastal roads above Copacabana’s beaches, each circuit contained a number of gruelling climbs—and treacherous descents. Both races were among the longest in Olympic history. And in each the final downhill stretch produced a slew of casualties, as exhausted riders came flying off their bikes on tight corners.
Vincenzo Nibali, a wiry Italian climber and former Tour-de-France winner, was leading the men’s event when he tumbled and broke both collarbones with 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) to go, colliding with Colombian rider Sergio Henao, who fractured his pelvis. Britain’s Geraint Thomas, who won the prestigious Paris-Nice race earlier this year, fell heavily on the same descent; Richie Porte, an Australian who won the Paris-Nice the year before, broke his shoulder blade. The climax of the women’s race was also brutal, with Dutch front-runner Annemiek van Vleuten flipping over her handlebars and suffering three fractures to her spine; at the time of writing, she remains in intensive care.
Once the final stragglers rolled over the finish line, the extent of the damage became clear. Fewer than half of the men made it to the end, representing the worst toll in three decades (see chart); nearly a quarter of the women did not finish, the second highest fraction since the event was first held in 1984. The percentage of riders who fail to complete the race is not always a helpful statistic, since it includes those who drop out or finish too far behind the winner. In the past, it was typical for fewer than half of the competitors to record a final time (reliable data is available from 1948 onwards). But in the context of modern cycling, in which the overall standard of entrants has improved, this year’s races were a bloodbath. Commentators quickly blamed the course. Chris Boardman, a former Olympic champion who was covering the event for the BBC, described the final descent as “way past being technical; it was dangerous”. Mr Boardman also criticised the “road furniture”—cycling jargon for the camber, gutters and protective fencing around the road—for being too hazardous, while former track cycling champion Victoria Pendleton described the circuit as “absolutely incredibly dangerous”.
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), which is responsible for designing the course, has been quick to deflect blame, pointing out that the trail “was carefully designed and was extensively tested”, though “unfortunately crashes do sometimes occur due to a combination of factors”. It is certainly true that an Olympic race, which is contested on a single afternoon, will encourage more daring tactics than multi-week tours. Riders are more likely to risk everything in a single-stage event than in a section of the Tour de France, in which they will have future chances to catch up.
The UCI must surely have considered this. Yet whatever testing they carried out clearly underestimated the chances that professional athletes might be willing to take in pursuit of an Olympic medal. The result was two compelling, unpredictable finales—but at an unreasonable price. Only one cyclist has ever been killed at the Olympics. No amount of drama would be worth a second death.
