British rider went down in crash resulting in Wild's relegation
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Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands (silver Medal), Elinor Barker of Great Britain with the gold medal and Jolien D'Hoore of Belgium (Bronze Medal) celebrate on the podium for the Women's scratch 10k(Image credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
Riders crash near the end of the RideLondon Classique(Image credit: Getty Images)
Carnage in the finishing straight at RideLondon Classique(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lorena Wiebes and Kirsten Wild battle for the line at RideLondon Classique. Wiebes got the win after Wild was disqualified(Image credit: Getty Images)
Chloe Hosking (Ale Cipollini) in the 2019 Women's Herald Sun Tour leader's jersey after winning stage 1(Image credit: Con Chronis)
British road and track star Elinor Barker (Drops Cycling) has hit back at negative comments made towards WNT-Rotor rider Kirsten Wild, who was first across the finish line at the RideLondon Classique on Saturday but was relegated for having been judged to have caused a crash that brought down Barker, among others.
Olympic team pursuit gold medallist Barker was left with a broken collarbone, but tried to look on the bright side, writing on Twitter on Sunday: "They say you're not a real cyclist until you've broken a collarbone. Avoided joining the club for the last 15 years, but not much I could do yesterday. Thanks for everybody's messages. I'll be fine."
Wild – looking to take her third victory at the one-day race that takes place in central London, having also won last year and in 2016 – moved to her left in the bunch sprint with around 100 metres to go, looking for some open road having been caught behind a number of other riders. The switch took out Ale Cipollini's Chloe Hosking, with the domino effect of the Australian's fall taking down around 20 other riders, including the reigning scratch-race world champion Barker.
Wild stayed upright and powered through on the left-hand side of the road to be first across the line, only for the commissaires to judge her move as illegal – UCI regulation 2.12.007, article 5.1: 'Deviation from the chosen line that endangers other riders' – relegating the Dutchwoman to last place in the front group (37th), as well as fining her 200 Swiss francs (£170/US$200).
The second-placed rider – Parkhotel Valkenburg's Lorena Wiebes – was handed the race victory as a result.
"A bit upsetting to see comments aimed at Kirsten, though," Barker added in a further tweet. "It's easy to criticise from a slow-mo aerial shot. The real-time reality is that everybody is just hoping that their split-second decision benefits themselves without harming anybody else. Race accidents happen."
Hosking, meanwhile – despite hitting the ground hard and rolling several times – was able to walk away from the crash, "missing skin" and with "a hit to the head".
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"For those who saw, I took a bit of a tumble at RideLondon yesterday," Hosking wrote on social media. "Missing skin and took a hit to the head. This morning I'm feeling like I had big night last night, but without the good memories. Will be monitoring the head situation over the next few days."
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