Dame Sarah Storey collides with mother and child during Croydon cycle race

Dame Sarah Storey collided with a mother and her son midway through round three of The Matrix Fitness Grand Prix Series in Croydon last night. The 11-time Paralympic champion took to Twitter to explain the incident.

“Bit battered after exiting the fastest corner on the circuit and being confronted by a woman trying to cross the course with her young son,” she began. “Had nowhere to go and ended up hitting them, but worse was the woman shoved her boy towards me when he was trying to run for safety.”

Storey expressed her hope that the boy was okay after getting caught up underneath her bike and emphasised that there was nothing she could have done to prevent the collision.

Roads were closed for the event, but there were reports of a number of people breaching safety barriers to cross the route. “It happened all round the course by people annoyed they weren't able to use their ‘usual’ route,” said Storey.

She then pointed out that it wasn’t just cyclists who were a threat to those crossing – the camera bike could have hit someone as well.

Scottish rider Charline Joiner won a race that featured its fair share of scrapes and went as far as to label the corner of Drummond Road and North End “death corner”.

Earlier this year, Storey made an attempt on the UCI Hour Record at the Lee Valley VeloPark in London where Sir Bradley Wiggins will this weekend make his own attempt. While Storey fell a little over two laps short of the required distance, she did set a new British record of 45.502 kilometres.