Dutch cyclist Mathieu Van Der Poel crashed spectacularly during the mountain biking competition at the Olympics earlier this week, but the broadcast cameras didn’t capture the incident well.
Check out this better view captured by a spectator. You can clearly see Van Der Poel misjudge the drop and watch him go head over handlebars, brutal.
Van Der Poel withdrew from the race shortly after, and has since blamed the incident on a practice ramp that was removed from the course for the competition.
That’s gotta suck, but was he the only person in the entire field that didn’t know the practice ramp was going to be removed for the race? Seems odd.
Van Der Poel was a favorite to win the event, but British rider Tom Pidcock surprised everybody by storming ahead from the 4th row to win the race.