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Surgery for Van Vleuten after Worlds crash

By Cycling News

published 1 October 2018

Four weeks off the bike for time trial world champion

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Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands)(Image credit: Getty Images)

Amy Pieters and Annemiek van Vleuten celebrate(Image credit: Getty Images)

Annemiek Van Vleuten celebrates her second consecutive time trial world title(Image credit: Getty Images)

Annemiek van Vleuten pours on the pressure(Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Individual time trial world champion Annemiek van Vleuten is recovering from surgery performed on Monday to fix a fracture of her tibial plateau, which she suffered in a crash during the UCI Road World Championships elite women's road race on Saturday.

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World Championships: Van Vleuten leads Dutch sweep of women's time trial

Van Vleuten wins time trial title in 'game of seconds' at Worlds

Anna van der Breggen solos to world championship title

Crash derails Van Vleuten's world championship dreams

The Dutch woman posted a thumbs-up photo on Twitter, saying that she would be in a brace that would prevent her from bending her knee for four weeks.

Van Vleuten went down in a crash with Great Britain's Dani King on a traffic island with 95km to go in the women's race. She remounted and chased back on, and helped to spark the winning move by teammate Anna van der Breggen with 42km to go.

Not realizing she had a piece of bone broken off inside her knee, Van Vleuten continued to the finish, crossing the line in seventh place with teammate Amy Pieters, 7:05 behind the new world champion.

It wasn't until she got off her bike that she realized the knee might be worse than the dislocation she feared during the race. Unable to walk, Van Vleuten was ushered away to an ambulance and taken for x-rays, where the break was discovered.