Quote: Andy Gilder "The problem with the descent was the combination of difficulty and lack of any kind of margin for error or safety precautions in the event of someone getting it wrong. Vincenzo Nibali is one of the best descenders in world cycling, yet it caught him out on Saturday. If you're going to have a descent that tricky and made even more so by the shadows cast by the trees over the road, then you can't have six inch deep gutters on both sides of the road that will throw anyone getting it slightly wrong over their handlebars. It's like putting concrete walls with no deformable barrier on the fastest part of a Formula One track.'"
I agree. I get Sal's point about it be the ultimate challenge to win an Olympic gold so of course it should be difficult but they seemed to go beyond that to almost reckless/careless. It says it all about the course when we are relieved that it's 'only'.a severe concussion and three spinal fractures. Perhaps also 'fortunate' that she was on her own and not in a group of 3/4 that could've caused mutiple injuries.
As for others making it down safely, I'd imagine that with her being in 1st place at the time that others may have gotten a heads up to use caution going into that particular turn, especially as she still lay motionless on the side of it. In the gymnastics that's just an unfortunate injury that can happen in sport and whilst cyclists know that crashes come with the territory, this was pretty much asking for something serious to happen.