Team GB rider Johnny Bellis was critically injured while riding his motor scooter near his training base in Italy yesterday. British Cycling issued the following brief statement on the incident.
Bellis is rated as one of Team GBs prospects for London 2012, he came to prominence as a track cyclist, but showed what he could do on the road with an impressive ride to third place in the 2007 world U23 road race.
British Cycling Statement
21 year old cyclist Johnny Bellis from the Isle of Man was involved in a crash on his motor scooter on 19th September near his training base in Quarratta Italy. Johnny is in a critical condition in the CTO hospital in Florence. Max Sciandri of the British Cycling Academy is at the hospital.
British Cycling’s Performance Director Dave Brailsford said “All our focus and attention right now is on Johnny and his family and ensuring that they are looked after and given the best possible care at this time”
Plucked from the obscurity of his London commute back in the mid-Nineties to live in Bath and edit bike mags our man made the jump to the interweb back in 2006 as launch editor of a large cycling website somewhat confusingly named after a piece of navigational equipment. He came up with the idea for road.cc mainly to avoid being told what to do… Oh dear, issues there then. Tony tries to ride his bike every day and if he doesn't he gets grumpy, he likes carbon, but owns steel, and wants titanium. When not on his bike or eating cake Tony spends his time looking for new ways to annoy the road.cc team. He's remarkably good at it.