Remco Evenepoel, Belgian cyclist and double Olympic gold medallist in Paris, suffered a serious accident yesterday and was taken to the hospital with multiple fractures. The cyclist crashed into a mail van after the door was suddenly opened, and Evenepoel didn't have time to react and avoid it.
The accident happened in Gooik, north of Brussels, and Evenepoel was training. The cyclist was taken to the hospital, where they found fractures to his rib, right shoulder blade and hand.
The bicycle was shattered in two pieces. Patrick Lefevere, his team director (Soudal-QuickStep) said that "better to split his bike in two than his arm" to Belgium site Sporza.
Evenepoel is current World Cycling Champion
The 24-year-old cyclist has won the time trial test at UCI Road World Championships twice in 2023 and 2024 and the UCI men's road race in 2024, whose winner are usually considered the World Cycling Champion and awarded the rainbow jersey for a year.
He also won two Gold medals in Paris Olympics last summer in time trial and road race, finished third at his Tour de France debut last summer and won La Vuelta a España in 2022.
This isn't the first serious accident Evenepoel suffers: the worst was in 2020, when he collided with a low wall and fell nine metres down the road in Il Lombardia, suffering a fractured pelvis and right lung contusion that, at that moment, seemed to have put an abrupt end to his career.