Sprint national coach Jan van Eijden considers serious falls like those at the European Track Cycling Championships in Munich to be normal.
“It’s part of sport, especially cycling. If you go on the track, you have to accept that you can fall,” said the former sprint world champion. Of course, everyone hopes that this doesn’t happen and if it does, that it ends lightly.
“You drive close together and if you don’t drive close together then you have fewer and fewer chances of winning,” explained the 46-year-old.
There were repeated falls at the European Championships on the wooden oval in the Munich Exhibition Center. On Monday, five drivers collided with each other in the points race of the Omnium four-way competition.
While Johanna Kitti Borissza, Emily Kay and Maike van der Duin were able to get off the track on their own shortly afterwards, the Greek Argiro Milaki and Hanna Sowej from Ukraine received medical care inside behind a screen for a long time.
Broken bones and lacerations at the cycling championship
Both athletes were put on a drip before they were taken out of the hall and to the hospital on stretchers. According to her association, the Greek suffered a shoulder blade injury on Tuesday, but suffered no fractures.
She also had a laceration on her eyebrow. Further investigations are to take place at home. Nothing was initially known about the nature and severity of the Ukrainian’s injury.
On Sunday, Italy’s Letizia Paternoster was involved in a mass crash in the elimination race. The 23-year-old world champion in this discipline suffered a traumatic brain injury and suffered a triple fracture of the right collarbone, which was to be operated on.