Olympic gold medallist Matt Walls has been injured after being sent flying over the barriers and into the crowd following a huge crash on day three of the Commonwealth Games track cycling, which also saw spectators hurt. The BBC’s Laura Scott reported that one of the spectators was “wheeled off covered in blood”.
Walls’ GB team-mate Matt Bostock, a Manx rider, was also caught up in the multi-rider crash, with British Cycling saying both athletes were “being treated by medics” and would be “taken to hospital for further treatment”.
Walls, who won omnium gold in Tokyo last year, was competing in the men’s scratch race on Sunday when the accident occurred.
Nuts #velodrome #crash #cycling #CommonwealthGames pic.twitter.com/KkPxZzSjhC
— Freddie King (@Freddie12989163) July 31, 2022
The rest of the session – there was one sprint race left – was cancelled as medical staff attended to several riders, including Walls.
An ambulance was waiting at the Lee Valley Velodrome in London to take the 24-year-old to hospital.
It was the second heavy crash involving Team England riders in the space of two days after sprinter Joe Truman briefly lost consciousness before being taken away in a wheelchair following a collision with Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer in the second round of the men’s keirin on Saturday.
The PA news agency reported that witnesses said that, because of the gradient of the banking, spectators in the front row had been unsighted for the crash. One man received treatment for cuts to his arm while a young girl also received minor attention.
