Bicycle accident with a motorcycle – drama for German triathletes
Andreas Dreitz had to follow most of the race from his sick bed
Those: instagram.com/andi_dreitz/
Not even half of the cycling route at the Ironman World Championships was completed when professional triathlete Andreas Dreitz disappeared from the camera’s field of view, and his time stood still afterwards. Now he reports from his sick bed: The accident seems fatal, a motorcycle had stopped in front of him.
Asuddenly he was gone. Professional triathlete Andreas Dreitz wanted to fight for a place among the best long distance aces at the Ironman World Championships in St. George, after swimming 3.86 kilometers he got out of the lake in 51:51 minutes and was doing well on his bike . After 62 kilometers, the 33-year-old was in ninth place, 4:07 minutes behind the leaders. He looked strong, ready to fight for the top positions.
But then spectators and experts asked themselves: Where is Andreas Dreitz? Looking at the intermediate results puzzled. During the measurement at kilometer 83.2 he did not appear, no cameras captured him. However, every new look at the live tracker showed for a while: his race time is still running, he should soon get to the next measure too, while the peak was a long way off. Something was wrong. Then his time stopped.
Dreitz must have taken apart a long time ago. Information about an accident made the rounds, but also information that he was fine under the circumstances. At first it was even rumored that he was probably back in the race. The German then contacted him again and confirmed what had happened: an accident on his bike had disappointed his world championship hopes even before the tough battles on the Ironman track really began.
In the end, 28-year-old Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt (7:49:16) triumphed ahead of Canadian Lionel Sanders and New Zealander Braden Currie. Best German: Florian Angert as an excellent fifth.
“There was no chance”
Dreitz was missing only the role of spectator from the sick bed. He has published two photos: one of him on a stretcher in an ambulance while looking at the World Cup track from the rear window. Another image shows the bike-of him with a broken fork.
So what exactly happened? A motorcycle, she writes, “she suddenly stopped in front of me in the middle of a road”. Since he had already gone downhill, Dreitz was extremely fast. “I braked hard but there was no possibility of stopping so quickly and there was no room to steer.”
A high speed crash can be violent, Dreitz was probably lucky despite all the bad luck. A definitive diagnosis is still pending. According to an initial check, he allegedly injured his lumbar vertebrae, as well as a swollen left thigh and abrasions. “No further comments at this point,” he writes, promising, “But I’ll be back.”
