A cyclist competing in the 2016 Olympics was hit by a car during a training ride on the roads of Rio de Janeiro, police said on Tuesday.
Kim Ok-cheol, 21, competing for South Korea, was struck by the wing mirror of a car in the Tijuca national park in Rio, according to Reuters, and suffered scratches when he fell to the ground, but police say he did not go to hospital.
“It was a minor incident with light scratches. He did not want to be taken to hospital,” a spokesman for the traffic police, Jose Helio Macedo, told Reuters.
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Macedo said police officers were passing by when the collision happened.
The local organizing committee, Rio 2016, said the collision was a minor event and Tuesday was not an official training day for cycling events.
Ok-cheol, who was a bronze medallist at this year’s Asian Championships in the team pursuit, will compete in the men’s road race on Saturday. Traffic police will escort riders during the road race events.
2 thoughts on “South Korean cyclist hit by driver on streets of Rio”
“The local organizing
“The local organizing committee, Rio 2016, said the collision was a minor event and Tuesday was not an official training day for cycling events.“
Was I the only one thinking this sounded a bit like the organising committee are blaming Kim Ok-cheol for being on the road when he shouldn’t?! 😮 Of course, you can only train when the organising committee say so, and cyclists shouldn’t really be on the road anyway…
Or are they just trying to avoid blame in case anyone thinks they didn’t organise something properly?
DaveE128 wrote:
Reads abit like that, but i’d like to think that they mean that if it wasnt official training that he was on his own (i.e. not in a group, no team support car etc), so when he had an accident it was abit more concerning or interesting. (i.e. imagine if you have an accident in your car, or whatever, then the person gets up and says their competing in the olympics tomorrow).
I also read the ‘didnt want to go to hospital’ to mean ‘i’ve not got an awful disease now and i dont want to go there and pick one up’.