Cycle racer Ben Swift recounts his 'nightmare' mountain crash

CYCLE racer Ben Swift expects to be back in the saddle next week after the training ride accident in Tenerife that left him in intensive care.

And, says the 31-year-old Team Sky rider, the smash could have been a lot worse.

Ben was on a mountain descent travelling at more than 40mph when his bike hit a rock in the road, sending him face-first into the tarmac.

He tore his spleen in three places and spent a week in hospital before returning home this week.

The Rotherham rider saw a specialist yesterday and, all being well, will step back onto his home trainer in a few days and ease his way back into the season.

But speaking to the Advertiser, Ben was happy to be on the road to recovery from the kind of crash he described as “every cyclist's worst nightmare”.

He explained: “I was getting a banana, doing about, 42-44mph, for us that's normal, it's cruising.

“We went through a section where the mountain had been cut away to make way for the road. It cast a shadow and there was a rock in the road that was the same colour as the tarmac. I had one hand on the handlebar because I was having the banana, and I hit that rock.

The pictures Ben Swift posted from his hospital bed.

“It was lucky I had only one hand on the handlebar because if I'd had two, I'd have had a stronger grip and could have veered off the edge of the mountain.

“As it was, I fell straight down."

Luckily for Ben, help was on hand from teammate Geraint Thomas and coach Conor Taylor.

He added: “If I hadn't had so much pain in my side then I would have almost got back on my bike and finished the training ride or gone back to my hotel but, because the pain was so severe, we really needed to go and get it checked out. It is a good job we did because we found out it was internal damage.

"It is a cyclist's worst nightmare to have something like that happen but luckily I had a good team around me. It would have been a quite scary situation if I had been up there on my own."

More from Ben Swift in this week's Advertiser.

 

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