Tokyo 2020 - 'She's angry but didn't look too bad in terms of injuries' - Bradley Wiggins on Laura Kenny's crash
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Updated 08/08/2021 at 02:35 GMT
Kenny was awarded 16 points after a number of riders fell close to the finish of the opening scratch race. There are three more races in the omnium, the structure of which has been adjusted since Kenny claimed back-to-back victories in Rio de Janeiro and London. You want it? We have it. Stream every Olympic event live on discovery+
‘She looked angry!’ – Kenny suffers huge blow to hopes of sixth Olympic gold
Bradley Wiggins says that Laura Kenny is "quite angry" but appears to have escaped her crash in the opening omnium race without major injury.
Kenny, seeking a sixth Olympic gold medal and second of Tokyo 2020, fell heavily as a large group of riders went down in the opening scratch race.
She was awarded 16 points, putting her on the back foot as she bids to defend the omnium title she won both in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
However she does have three more races in which to score points - Kenny goes into the second race 24 points behind scratch race winner Jennifer Valente.
"We've just seen that huge crash in the first race of the women's omnium," said Eurosport and discovery+ expert Wiggins, beside the track at the Izu Velodrome.
Lots of them went down, lots of them are now getting bandaged up and looked at by the various medics.
"Interestingly we usually have the Italian girls warming down behind us and Laura. She hasn’t yet got on the rollers yet. She did walk through the mix zone and back to the Team GB pen. She looked quite angry, Laura, quite frustrated.
"She didn’t look too bad in terms of injuries, [but has] lost a bit of skin and had a mark on her right eye."
Kenny had taken second place in the scratch race in an omnium event structured differently at the last Olympics five years ago.
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Britain's Laura Kenny, Ireland's Emily Kay, France's Clara Copponi and Belgium's Lotte Kopecky crash during the women's track cycling omnium scratch race during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Izu Velodrome in Izu, Japan, on August 8, 2021.
Image credit: Getty Images
Among the other riders to tumble in Tokyo were Belgium's Lotte Kopecky and Daria Pikulik, Poland's 2020 World Championship bronze medallist in this discipline.
Wiggins later spoke to a British Cycling press officer who updated him on Kenny's condition,
"Laura was quite angry after the finish, understandably. She’s changed her suit and was smiling here a little earlier on.
She got warmed down. She didn’t look too bad actually, she was having a plaster put on her finger.
"They did give her a DNF funnily enough, which has been reversed. We did actually see her get back on her back and finish the race.
"She’s got 16 points. She did finish and she’s still in this competition. It’s not over yet for Laura and she’s smiling, that’s the main thing. Think that will put some fire on her belly.”
Kenny returned to the velodrome for the second discipline of the omnium - the tempo race.
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