ARCH-URGH
Heartbreaking moment Brit certain for Paralympics 2024 gold suddenly crashes and collapses onto velodrome floor
Favourite was in command only to tumble but admits pressure might have got to him
ARCHIE ATKINSON lost cycling gold with 250 metres to go after crashing to the track in Devon Loch manner.
The Stockport rookie set a world record time of 4:17.700 in qualifying for the men’s C4 4,000m Individual Pursuit on Saturday morning.
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A few hours later, he was flying in the gold medal race against Jozef Metelka and almost lapped the Slovakian.
But on the final lap, as he tried to set another blistering time, Atkinson pushed it too hard and came off his bike in embarrassing style.
Metelka, 37, stayed upright for one more lap and the title was his – which he celebrated in wild fashion.
It brought back memories of the sorry case of Devon Loch, the infamous horse owned by the Queen Mother and ridden by Dick Francis that led the 1956 Grand National but fell on the final straight.
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Atkinson, 20, tried to put on a brave face following a bizarre situation but was sick backstage after the medal ceremony.
He said: “I was the favourite to win. Maybe the pressure got to me a bit. Maybe I let it go to my head. And that could have played a part.
“I’m disappointed. I will reset and refocus for the road.
“I think I’m OK. I can see and I’m all in one piece. I just ran out of energy and went down.
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“After that world record, I thought: ‘What more can I do?’ I was going very well. I thought, I have got this, I have got this. Then, bang!
“Hopefully this is just the start of something big. You never know. I went above and beyond.”
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Euphoric Metelka said: “This happened last probably when the T-Rex was around, I feel massively lucky, like you can’t even comprehend.
“The luck is like from here to the Eiffel Tower and back, it’s just indescribable.
“Cleary, he’s a better rider, he’s stronger, I was five seconds down – you don’t recover from there.
“You can try to upset the rhythm, you can try to play the game and maybe something happens. Whether that helped, whatever that was, this was luck that I can’t comprehend.”
Jaco van Gass could not back up gold medal display 24 hours earlier and finished fourth in the men’s C1-3 1,000m time trial.
He called on the UCI to change the rules as he was the fastest rider on the track but missed out on a medal due to the application of factoring time rules.
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