After Annemiek van Vleuten’s bike crash, I’m just happy to see anyone finish

bI was half-watching when the camera panned to the lone Annemiek van Vleuten as she approached a bend in the road. She was far ahead of her competitors and and had practically won the gold medal. The rest of the race would be pretty much ceremonial.

Drops of rain were hitting the NBC camera as she got closer to the turn. Just as the commentators, Phil Liggett and Christian Vande Velde, began to state that the moto with the camera has gone, he and his partner let out a fearful “whoa!”

Van Vleuten was supposed to curve right, but didn’t, her bike kept going straight against the road. Then the front wheel seemed to hit an invisible wall and she flipped over the handles, fell on her head/neck and then flipped over once more. She was going around 50 mph at the time. Her body fell lifeless instantly, with the border of the road dividing it in half — her upper body on the road, and the lower part in the dirt.

Then, there was the harrowing sequence of the camera and the cameraman going down the path still, while looking back at her body, being pulled away by his/her duty to the race while she laid there in need of help. She was being left behind. A man in red can be seen running to her aid before she disappeared from view completely.

The next time we see her is when the camera is on Mara Abbott as she approached the same part of the road. The American cruised past the corner with no issue, barely glancing at the grounded van Vleuten. There was after all, a race to be won.

There was no race after her accident, at least not for a lot of viewers. It continued as was the plan — the show must go on — but it’s difficult to pay attention to anything on-screen when the tragedy off-screen is more compelling. The rest of the racers kept going but her condition was of the most immediate concern. The question of what happened was easily dwarfed by the sinister elephant in the room. Was she still alive?

No one certainly wants to ask that question, it’s an ugly thing to consider. It makes one feel bad and shameful as soon as the thought bubble pops up. And just as quickly as it comes up, you veer to the complete opposite side of extreme optimism, that of course she’s OK. She’s wearing a helmet, they have medical personnel at hand, and this race wouldn’t have been sanctioned without a scenario like this being anticipated and a plan for it being devised.

But, that’s just the hope born out of the inability to deal with the greatest fear. That you, and every other person participating in the viewing of the event, could have very well just seen someone lose their life. That feeling doesn’t go away.

Not until you see or hear the update that she is “Okay.”

Okay. A concussion, three cracks to her spine and being taken into intensive care is okay. It almost feels like a sick joke, but there’s a great relief that comes with that message. In a world where human beings are traveling at 50 mph on a bicycle, that’s probably one of the best outcomes for an accident like that. Okay is not really OK but okay is much better than the alternative.

These type of incidents are the scariest part of watching sports like cycling, or racing or NFL football. The major injuries in them are much different than the ones in other sports, where for example, a player in Paul George can break his leg by colliding with the basket stanchion and the results are so gruesome that it’s impossible to even watch the video. And his cries of pain resonate with you for months after.

But pain is good. Pain means that they’re still alive. Those same injuries happen in cycling, racing and NFL, as well, but when you see something like Van Vleuten’s accident or Bryan Clauson’s car hit a wall, flip through two turns and then get T-boned by a trailing car — or even when Ricardo Lockette was hit in the neck area before falling lifeless on the football field — you realize the privilege of those cries of pain. For the athlete and for the viewer.

These things happen and that athlete becomes the most immediate concern in the world. And almost to play on that anxiety, but understandable why it happens, the camera either pans away from the downed figure or the channel goes to commercial. It’s supposed to shield the watcher from the terrible event, but what it ends up doing is leaving your mind to consider the worst case possible. Especially when the video returns and they’re still down.

At that point, you start wishing that they would scream in agony, because you’re not wondering how bad the injury is, or how long they will be out. You’re considering if they’re even still with us.

Because regardless of all the protection that they have, all the safety procedures in place and the training that they’ve gone through, those competitors are still weak compositions of easily torn flesh and malleable bones. There’s not too much you can do to keep a sport like cycling exciting and fully protect the athletes, as well. They have to go 50 mph and higher, which means they have to pedal hard straight into that danger.

Watching the rest of the race meant living with that truth. It changes the complexion of seeing another dutch cyclist, Anna van der Breggen, win the gold. She was trailed by the same Mara Abbott who was initially behind Annemiek van Vleuten. Rather than being very excited for a thrilling finish — Abbott was in first before being overtaken at the end by van der Breggen and two other riders — I was just happy that they made it to the finish line unscathed. Just as I was happy reading that van Vleuten was “okay.”

It became a celebration of life, because they’re not just competing against their own limits and the other cyclists behind them, they’re also cheating death with every successful turn. Or every lucky failed one.