Tour de France champion and Olympic gold-medallist Bradley Wiggins has left hospital after being treated for injuries sustained in a collision yesterday with a vehicle.
Wiggins (32) was thrown off his bike when a white Vauxhall Astra Envoy is thought to have pulled out of a petrol station and hit him.
A police source said his injuries from the crash were thought to be very serious at first, but later it appeared he suffered a number of broken ribs and cuts and bruises.
The accident happened at about 6pm yesterday in Wrightington, Lancashire, which is near to his family home in Eccleston.
Father-of-two Wiggins is known to regularly embark on training rides around the area’s rural roads. The driver of the Astra, a local woman, was uninjured.
A Lancashire police spokesman said last night: “Police were called to the scene of a road traffic accident at Crow Orchard Road in Wrightington at about 6pm this evening.
“A cyclist has been involved in a collision with a white Vauxhall Astra car. The rider of the bike, a 32-year-old local man, was taken to hospital by ambulance with injuries not thought to be life-threatening. His family have been told.”
Collision investigators visited the scene but the road did not need to be closed.
Garage attendant Yasmin Smith, who went to Wiggins’s aid, told the Lancashire Evening Post: “By the time I got there he had moved to a safer place but was still on the ground and he was in a lot of pain.
“He said he thought he had broken his ribs and while a lot of police cars arrived it was about 15 minutes before the ambulance got there, by which time he was blue.”
In a statement on its website, Team Sky said: “We can confirm that on Wednesday evening Bradley Wiggins was involved in a road traffic accident whilst riding his bike near his home in Lancashire.
Meanwhile Shane Sutton, head coach for the GB Cycling Team, is recovering in hospital after he was involved in a separate road accident today in Manchester in which he suffered bruising and bleeding on the brain.
A spokeswoman for British Cycling said: "It is extremely rare that our riders and coaches are hurt while out cycling on the road, even rarer that two incidents should occur in a short space of time, and we wish Shane and Bradley a speedy recovery."
PA