Team GB cycling hopes hit by brutal crash to leave rider feeling like a ‘crash test dummy’
Ollie Wood was wiped out by Jan-Willem van Schip, of the Netherlands, in an incident that appeared to involve head-to-head contact
Team GB cyclist Ollie Wood felt like a ‘crash test dummy’ after being dramatically wiped out by a Dutch opponent during a mad Olympic Madison in Paris.
Wood, 28, was controversially taken down with 40 laps to go during the chaotic event as there appeared to be head-to-head contact between him and Jan-Willem van Schip.
Team GB did not complain about Van Schip’s move, but the Dutch team were later disqualified from the race and Van Schip fined 1,000CHF (£720) for a “blow with the helmet” according to the commissaires’ decision.
Wood’s racing line looked to be intentionally intercepted as he was inexplicably sent plummeting to the canvas in front of a stunned Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines crowd.
The incident meant Team GB lost a crucial lap and 20 points as they ended up finishing 10th out of 15 teams while Portugal grabbed gold ahead of Italy.
Speaking about the collision, Wood, 28, said: “I’ll be fine and live to fight another day.
“It’s not my first crash but it’s a bit different when you get hit from behind and you don’t see it coming.
“There were a lot of resting riders, so he probably thought instead of a high line, he’d cut it fine and he ploughed into me.
“I’ve got no clue [if it was a clash of heads] – I just got hit really hard from behind by the biggest rider on the track.
“Everyone’s cognitive functions started to decline at one given point pretty rapidly – there were lots of lapses of concentration and when there are people all over the track, wheels colliding is inevitable.
“He hit me so hard, I felt like a crash test dummy. Overall, I just didn’t have the legs to execute it today.”
Teammate Mark Stewart, who was forced to rush back onto the track to resume the race after the incident, added: “I thought if I wasn’t already suffering, I’m going to suffer now!”
Stewart, who won Madison World Championship silver in Glasgow alongside Wood last year, only discovered he would be racing on Saturday morning after being given an indication by Hayter the previous evening.
Hayter had combined with Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon to scoop team pursuit silver behind Australia in midweek but was forced to withdraw from the Madison with a calf injury.
And asked about his eleventh-hour call-up, Stewart said: “You’ve got to be ready to race the whole time and all, credit to Ethan – I saw how deep he went in those team pursuits and you can see he wasn’t right.
“I thought there was a chance I’d get the call and I took the role seriously.
“It was a horrendous mix of the worst nerves ever and confidence – we are high performance athletes, have amazing support from British Cycling so you do go out there with confidence.
“But you’ve also got this contrasting thing of it being the most nervous you’ve ever been in your life.
“Ethan gave me a heads up yesterday and I said ‘take all the time you need’ as he’s been phenomenal.
“We just struggled to make an impression – we knew it was going to be hot and fast because this is the Olympics, so we rode relatively conservatively but at the end of the day our legs never came out.”
Earlier in the evening, Jack Carlin kicked off his latest pursuit of a long-awaited major gold medal by progressing to the men’s keirin quarter-finals.
The Paisley peddler, 27, won team sprint silver and individual bronze earlier this week and got his third and final campaign underway in straightforward fashion.
Carlin, a three-time world and four-time European silver medallist, finished second in his heat behind Dutch star Harrie Lavreysen to safely advance automatically ahead of home French favourite Sebastian Vigier.
He will race for a spot in the final this morning after British teammate Hamish Turnbull, who combined with Carlin for that team sprint silver, also eventually advanced via a repechage on Saturday night.
Carlin is a serial silver and bronze medallist but still remains without a gold on the major stage.
He won team and individual sprint silver in Tokyo three years ago and produced a carbon copy of those outcomes in Paris last week.
Away from the Olympics, Carlin remains hugely decorated on the world and European stages but without that elusive gold.
He will hope to change that in the keirin competition which resumes this morning and reaches its thrilling climax on the Parisian boards at lunchtime.
In the final event of the evening, fellow Team GB stars Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell successfully navigated their way through to the women’s sprint semi-finals.
The duo, who combined with Katy Marchant for a thrilling team gold earlier this week, progressed through both of their races and like Carlin, will compete again this morning bidding to keep their hopes of an individual medal alive.
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