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Annemiek van Vleuten crash World Championships Wollongong 2022 mixed relay

Annemiek van Vleuten — the all-conquering winner of all three of this year’s women’s Grand Tour replicas, including the Tour de France Femmes — crashed out of the World Championships mixed relay time trial this morning (UK time) and says she is on the way to hospital for X-rays. Her right side is heavily bruised, the prolific winner who will retire at the end of next season said, and she is “especially worried about my right elbow and arm”.

In the same social media post updating fans about her condition, Van Vleuten said the crash happened when her “front tyre exploded”. With the challenging road race on Saturday all we can do is hope one of the biggest names in the sport is on the startline to continue her sensational season…

> From Coppi to Van Vleuten: Cycling’s greatest ever seasons

It was a nightmare afternoon/morning (depending on your time zone) for the Dutch in the new(ish) mixed relay time trial — the event which replaced the team time trial a few years back and involves three male riders from a nation riding a TT before three women finish it off, starting when the men have completed their course.

Things went wrong for the riders in orange from the start ramp — Bauke Mollema’s chain getting snagged, although sadly no repeat of his hilarious sponsor-bashing outburst at the 2019 Giro…”I always ride with (SRAM) 1x (no derailleur). First time this happens this year. Bad luck at the worst moment,” he said after today’s mechanical.

Anyway, on the seventh anniversary of ‘Ronnie Pickering’ going viral, here’s everybody’s second favourite vid…

Oh, you want to know who actually won the mixed relay? Sorry, now we’ve got that stuff out the way I’ll tell you…

It was Swiss dominance, powered by European champion Marlen Reusser and nearly man Stefan Küng. Pretty strong back-up too when you can call on Stefan Bissegger, Mauro Schmid, Nicole Koller and Elise Chabbey for support.

> “It was terrifying”: Remco Evenepoel and World Championships pros suffer magpie attacks

Italy missed out on the win by three seconds, while home favourites Australia did enough to earn bronze, 38 seconds behind their Swiss rivals…. and breathe. That’s a lot of drama for before 9am…



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