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news
Chile Velodrome crash YouTube stillVideo: Horrific crash as cyclist hits velodrome starting gate that officials failed to remove
A Chilean cyclist racing for a women’s team sprint bronze medal at the South American Games in the country’s capital, Santiago, instead ended up in hospital with a fractured kneecap after crashing into a starting gate that officials had neglected to remove from the track.
It seems as though the starting gate was left in position due to a false start to the race, in which Chile, cheered on by a home crowd, were up against Brazil.
As the video shows, with an official waving a red flag, Estefania Ñúñez, riding man one, swung up the track to avoid it.
But Irene Aravena, riding in her slipstream with her view blocked, failed to see the starting gate until it was too late, the collision sending her somersaulting over it, the impact snapping her bike in two.
Aravena was operated on for a fractured patella at the city’s Clinica Santa María, reports sportslashlife.com.
The incident took place in the city’s new velodrome, which only opened in December, and the president of the Chilean national cycling federation, Roberto Pérez, has blamed a lack of experience on the part of the organisers for the crash.
With Chile forced to withdraw, the bronze medal went to Brazil.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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42 comments
Oh... my experience is that metal bikes tend to bend rather than snap... same result though.
I can't imagine that won't be the realistic end to her career.
there is a lot of proportional blame to be handed out with this one, alas only one person will be suffering the after effects.
What a shame, and I hope she recovers well.
Metal and carbon fail differently; carbon will suffer a catastrophic failure while steel will bend. But how they fail is irrelevant; a competition frame of either material would not have survived this sort of crash.
I hate misleading headlines
the headline directed all fault at the referees when clearly the whole story was more complicated
How is it misleading?
It's a statement of fact; the Coo-ee Mr Shifters on the right on the pic in the orange didn't move it. She hit it.
Would she have hit it if they had moved it? No.
Were other factors in play? Yes, it says so in the story.
Never seen a metal bike snap in two! As a victim of snapped carbon I would never trust it again! I can't accept that it is stronger.
This isn't a very evidence based thought process. Also begs the question, stronger than what?
I've watched the videos on youtube to show how carbon is stronger than alu by doing different experiments, but the problem is how carbon breaks. As mentioned above metal will bend but at least that gives you a chance, I had a set of forks (On a £1500 bike) so not cheap snap sending me flying over the bars, without an impact or anything like.
I have no doubt the outcome of her injuries would have been similar in this instance, I was just making the point that the bike snapped.
Need a bigger bank balance then I can go Ti!!
would you like to ride into a similarly solid object at a similar speed on a metal bike to back up your claim?
I've seen welds/brazing go on frames. Anything can fail if it's made too marginal or abused. Weight for weight carbon is much stronger than steel. If you compare an 800 gram carbon frame with an 800 gram steel frame the carbon is probably going to be stronger, certainly stiffer... The problem with all this carbon breaks stuff is that people are not comparing like with like.
Thats a nasty accident I hope her future career is not jeopardised
God you luddite morons are tiresome... Carbon is MORE strong than alloy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xreZdUBqpJs
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