Commonwealth Games cycling 2022: Rohan Dennis and Grace Brown complete time trial double
Rohan Dennis and Grace Brown completed a golden double on the road for Australia on another day of cycling carnage at the Commonwealth Games.
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On a day of carnage on the road, Australia’s world champion Rohan Dennis remained upright to claim gold in the Commonwealth Games men’s individual time trial.
Confronted by a narrow, technical course that they hadn’t had a look at in race conditions, riders slammed into barriers and slid through tight corners.
Dennis’s main rival, good friend Geraint Thomas, crashed into a barrier just two-minutes into his ride and gave up a lead he was unable to regain.
England’s Dan Bigham also hit the barricades and couldn’t free his bike, forcing him to grab his girlfriend Joscelin Lowden’s bike to finish the torturous 37.4km course.
Riders had been taken on a reconnaissance drive along the course, but before it was closed to traffic and barriers installed.
“I did realise that some of the corners did tighten up a little bit more than what I thought, so a couple nearly took me out, but I was quickly able to react and avoid that situation,” Dennis said.
“We were just going a lot quicker than we were going in recon. We didn’t quite know the speeds we were hitting the corners and sometimes you don’t realise how quick you go in the open roads.
“The fact was that we didn’t have a proper recon of that course and be able to properly test those corners at a reasonable pace.
“Checking the corners when there is traffic, you don’t know how fast you can take them and you are going two to three times faster than you would in recon. It sometimes catches people out.”
Welshman Thomas, who finished third at the recent Tour de France, rode just as fast as Dennis when he was on his bike, but was undone by his early crash.
“The recon I did in traffic, the barriers weren’t up so it was pretty pointless really other than knowing when the uphills and downhills are,” he said.
“But it was my fault at the end of the day — there was a sweeping left and all of a sudden there was a barrier and I was like, ‘Oh shit’.
“You are kind of used to that, seeing what the course is exactly going to be.
“It is just not as organised (the Commonwealth Games) as what we are used to basically.
“I don’t know what happened with the other crashes, but that’s probably the reason why, no one got to see it (the course) as it would be as we raced.”
By staying on his bike and riding with power and discipline, Dennis was able to claim a gold medal he said was 12 years in the making.
Despite two world championship crowns, Dennis, 32, had only claimed minor medals at Olympic or Commonwealth Games before this.
“I have finally gotten on that top step,” he said. “It has taken 12 years since Delhi (the 2010 Commonwealth Games), I didn’t get close there, but 12 years later I’ve finally got it.”
It was Dennis’s first race since June, when he and his Jumbo-Visma team had to abandon the Tour de Suisse because of Covid-19.
Three-years ago he sensationally abandoned the Tour de France after a dispute with then team Bahrain-Merida that he said was hurting his mental health.
“It has been a rollercoaster to be honest with you, there have been a lot of downs,” he said. “But I’d say, looking back, it has been a pretty good period of time.”
Dennis clocked 48:21 to claim the gold medal, with England’s Fred Wright taking silver and Thomas the bronze.
Aussie Luke Plapp finished fifth, but his chances of a medal were ruined when he lost 60 seconds after he chain came off and then jammed, forcing him to switch bikes.
“Mentally, after that I wasn’t in it, to be honest,” he said.
It was a clean sweep for Australia in the time trials, with Grace Brown putting in a dominant display to win the women’s race.
Brown, Australia’s top-ranked male or female road cyclist this year, blitzed the field across the 28.8km course.
A former middle and long-distance runner, Brown only started racing in 2016. She now has a Commonwealth Games gold to go with her bronze from the time trial at last year’s Olympics.
“I think especially from an Australian perspective, to win a gold at a Commonwealth Games, it is something that Australian sport really acknowledges and I think that is super special,” she said.
“Despite the Commonwealth Games for cycling not being huge I still think it is a special thing to have on my resume and I’m proud of it.
“I need to actually invest in a trophy cabinet I think.”
Brown did have a minor scare at the start of her race when she couldn’t clip in going down the ramp.
But it didn’t matter one bit as she finished 33.35 seconds ahead of England’s Anna Henderson.
‘Could have died’: Victims of freak cycling crash speak out
By Emily Benammar in Birmingham
A family caught up in a freak accident at the velodrome say their children were lucky not to have been “seriously injured or killed” while a friend was left with a ‘machete-like’ cut.
England’s Matt Walls and his bike were catapulted over the track barrier and into the crowd on the final lap of a qualifying heat for the men’s scratch race this week after a high-speed crash.
Paramedics worked on Walls for forty minutes before he was taken to hospital while multiple members of the public required medical assistance after being left “covered in blood.”
Reflecting on the terrifying experience, Hugh Colvin, who was sitting in the stands with his two young children and some friends, said Walls’ bike landed where his kids had been sitting before they moved for a better vantage point.
“It all happened so incredibly quickly at the speed the cyclists were going,” Colvin told the BBC.
“You can see the trajectory of the bike, it came through, grazed my daughter’s shoulder, and one of the photos you can see we are obviously underneath the wheel.
“I was facing the other way because I’d turned my head, but looking back at the photos it must have been within centimetres, millimetres, of our heads and obviously close enough to graze my daughter.”
The incident drew fierce criticism from Olympic hero Chris Hoy who said the lack of protective screening at the venue was “a disgrace.”
Isle of Man cyclist Matt Bostock, who was involved in the horrific crash, says the incident wasn’t a freak accident and is also calling greater safety measures at velodromes.
“There has to be something done because it’s going down as a freak accident, but it has happened before,” said Bostock.
“I don’t know how many freak accidents become a normal accident. I dread to think if it had been worse.
“It should be a proactive decision to try and make it safer before it’s a terrible accident.”
Colvin’s wife Laura, who was not at the velodrome, said watching the incident back over makes it hard to come to terms with just how much worse things could have been.
“What has been quite hard for us to get our head around is being able to see from the photographs that were taken of the incident exactly how close this came to being a complete catastrophe,” she said.
“And how close our two younger children came to being seriously injured or killed. And that has been the main thing we’ve had to reflect on over the last few days.
“If we had known for a moment that there was a risk that a bike with an adult male going at that speed could come into contact with my seven-year-old daughter, my family would never have been there.”
Laura added that a friend who attended the event with her husband was awaiting surgery on the injuries sustained which doctors likened to damage caused by a machete.
“It’s been really difficult for him, he’s still waiting for surgery. In addition to the soft tissue and muscle injury he’s got a partially severed tendon in his arm, so it is the start of a long road to recovery for him.
“He suffered a laceration to the bone which the hospital have described as being like a machete injury.”
Walls was discharged 12 hours after the accident with stitches to his head.
Two other riders involved in the incident – the Isle of Man’s Matt Bostock and Canada’s Derek Gee – have both been discharged from hospital with the former confident of riding in this weekend’s road race.
A spokesman for Birmingham 2022 has confirmed an investigation is underway amid calls for a total review of cycling protocols.
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