RIO DE JANEIRO — Not too many athletes can be slammed into the hard track of the Olympic velodrome at a high speed, bike and body sprawling in all directions, and get up and finish a 160-lap course to win gold.
But Elia Viviani of Italy is not just any athlete.
After the crash Monday night, Viviani realized he wasn’t hurt and he was still leading the final race in the omnium — the six-event, two day men’s competition.
So Viviani hauled himself back onto his bike and held off stiff challenges from British cycling star Mark Cavendish and reigning gold medalist Lasse Norman Hansen of Denmark.
“It’s a bike race,” Viviani said of the crash, caused when Cavendish collided with Korean rider Park Sang-hoon. “We’re on a track, no brakes.
When one guy changes directions in front of you and someone else is not ready to change directions, you crash.”
7 hurt as giant camera crashes to ground
Up to seven people were injured when a giant television camera suspended by cables plummeted to the ground in the Rio Olympic Park Monday, a spokesperson said.
The black camera, known as a ‘spidercam’ and used to take aerial shots of the park, came crashing down just outside the basketball stadium early in the afternoon.
An amateur video clip showed the camera, the size of a small motorbike, falling from a great height as people milled in the precinct below.
More footage showed two shocked-looking women sitting on the ground bleeding, one from the nose while the other has blood on her arm. Another video showed a girl being taken into an ambulance on a stretcher carrying a balloon and an Olympic mascot.
“Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) had realized that the weight of the camera was too much so they started to isolate the area before it fell,” a spokesperson for the Games said.
It was the latest in a number of high-profile incidents to have raised fears about safety at the Games.
Coach dies in car accident
A canoe slalom coach from Germany died Monday after sustaining head injuries last week in a car crash in Rio de Janeiro, the country’s Olympic team said.
Stefan Henze, who was 35 and won a silver medal in canoe slalom at the 2004 Athens Games, died surrounded by his family, the team said.
“We know that Stefan’s own Olympic thoughts live on in many people,” Henze’s family said in a statement.
Henze had been in a Rio hospital since undergoing emergency surgery following the taxi accident Friday.
“Today the sport which the whole team came to Rio for recedes into the background,” Germany team leader Michael Vesper said. “Our thoughts are with Stefan’s loved ones, who had the opportunity to say goodbye here.”
Sports scientist Christian Kaeding was in the taxi with Henze but had only slight injuries.
Germany will commemorate Henze’s death in the Olympic Village on Tuesday, and the country’s flag will be flown at half-staff at all Olympic sites in Rio.
Beaten Lavillenie fumes at jeering Brazilian crowd
Renaud Lavillenie was left fuming at a jeering partisan crowd as Brazilian Thiago Braz snatched Olympic pole vault gold in a thrilling competition.
The Frenchman was defending Olympic champion from London, but saw Braz snatch victory with an Olympic record of 6.03 meters.
He even compared the boos to the treatment received by Jesse Owens at Hitler’s 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
“In 1936 the crowd was against Jesse Owens. We’ve not see this since. We have to deal with it,” he said.
Lavillenie later apologised for his comments, saying he had made the comparison straight after the end of the competition when very upset.
The vaulting, at first disrupted by heavy rain that saw the start delayed, was the scene of extended jeers and whistles from a local crowd increasingly behind Braz as they realized he was in with a shout for a medal.
“Better to stay at home in front of your television than come and whistle,” said Lavillenie.
“At least then we’d have people in the stadium who want to watch sport.”
The Frenchman added: “It really disturbed me, I felt the nastiness of the public and we do a sport where you never see that.
“I completely understand that the Brazilians are behind Thiago, that’s totally normal. But what is not normal is the total lack of respect for the rivals. The least thing, if you don’t like someone, is to ignore them, but not to insult them. Because I took that as an insult.
“It’s horrible to see that at the Olympic Games.”
Lavillenie said he had never experienced such treatment over his long career.
