Remco Evenepoel: Double Olympic champion hospitalised after crash on training ride

Double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel has been hospitalised after a bike crash, his team Soudal-Quick Step said on Tuesday.

According to Belgian media reports, the 24-year-old crashed into an open door of a postal vehicle while he was on a training ride in Oetingen, Belgium.

“At the moment he is being assessed in hospital and there is no update,” a team spokesperson told Reuters.

Evenepoel, who claimed gold in the men’s road race and time trial at this year’s Olympics in Paris, was conscious after the incident.

However, there was a clean break to the frame of the 2022 Vuelta a Espana winner’s golden bike.

“Remco has pain in his shoulder and his hand. Our doctor is working on it,” Soudal-Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere told Belgium’s state-funded sports website Sporza.

“His bike broke in two in that incident, but it’s better to split his bike in two than his arm.”

In an update to Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, Evenepoel’s father Patrick said: “He has already sent us a message, so we hope everything is okay.”