“Best Parisian driver detected”: Olympic silver medallist Anna Henderson collides with Shimano neutral service car during road race, as Lizzie Deignan reveals “medial emergency” and night in hospital days before strong Team GB showing

A strong all-round display from Great Britain’s three-rider squad at a thrilling Olympic women’s road race may not have resulted in a medal on Sunday afternoon, but Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Henderson, and Lizzie Deignan’s ambitious, attacking ride on the streets of Paris was enough to earn classics specialist Georgi a well-deserved fifth place on the Trocadéro, around a minute and a half behind American Kristen Faulkner’s brilliantly timed solo triumph.

Team GB’s impressive performance – they were the only nation to place all their riders in the ultimately winning split that formed in the wake of Chloé Dygert’s pivotal crash with 48km to go, with Georgi, Deignan, and Henderson all finishing in the top 13 – wasn’t without its hiccups, however, both before and during the race.

In the closing stages of the race, after briefly being distanced from the elite group racing for the medals following a series of attacks, Henderson – the silver medallist in the time trial the weekend before – was chasing back through the race convoy when she collided with the Shimano neutral service vehicle, almost causing her to crash and forcing her to clip out of the pedals.

Controversy as GB cyclist hit by official car during Womens Olympic Road Race
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In a video of the incident posted to Reddit, Visma-Lease a Bike rider Henderson can be seen making her way around a right-hand bend on the tight, urban finishing circuit in Paris, surrounded by official race cars and motorbikes (a common sight in any professional road race), just as Polish rider and eventual tenth-place finisher Marta Lach pulls over soon after the corner with a puncture.

Spotting Lach’s mechanical problem, the driver of the blue Shimano neutral service car – which provides assistance to all riders if their own team car isn’t available – then veers over to the right to stop, just as Henderson speeds into the gap.

> What the hell is neutral service at the Tour de France?

The 25-year-old collides with the rear side of the vehicle, as one of the mechanics inside opens the door to service Lach, causing her to brake sharply and briefly unclip, before continuing her chase back to the leaders.

Henderson and Deignan crest the now-iconic climb of Montmartre near the end of Sunday’s thrilling race (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The clip has sparked some conversation on social media, with the blame for the incident seemingly divided between Henderson and the neutral service driver.

While many fans criticised the Shimano driver for his lack of awareness – one even sarcastically noting that the video has definitively found Paris’ best motorist – former Colombian pro Victor Hugo Peña, who rode for Lance Armstrong at US Postal for four years in the early 2000s, noted that riders making their way through the race convoy “can never pass on the right side”.

> Shimano responds to pro rider who lashed out at its neutral service, claiming she was denied assistance at World Championships road race

Sunday’s collision with Henderson marks the second time in a year that Shimano’s neutral service personnel have had an alleged effect on an elite women’s championship road race.

At last August’s world road race championships in Scotland, Luxembourg’s Christine Majerus lashed out at Shimano after claiming that she was denied neutral service assistance after puncturing in the first 10km of the race, forcing her to pull out “before it even started”.

However, Shimano responded to Majerus’ criticism – which included a plea for her social media followers to not buy from the Japanese components giant – by claiming that the staff in charge of the neutral service car in question “strictly adhered to the race convoy rules”.

And in 2015, the driver of one of the Shimano cars was responsible for a shocking crash at the Tour of Flanders, when he veered into Trek’s Jesse Sergent, causing the New Zealander to crash and abandon the race.

> “A TV camera is there to capture images and not to influence the race”: Mark Cavendish blasts Tour de France motorbike rider for putting him “out the back” after mechanical, as record-breaking sprinter fined for drafting behind team car

Meanwhile, vehicles of all kinds have played an increasingly worrying role in major races in recent years, especially at the Tour de France, where several incidents involving motorbikes straying too closely to the riders culminated this year in Mark Cavendish accusing a TV motorbike rider of interfering with his chase back to the peloton following a mechanical.

The prolonged and controversial return to the bunch during stage six of the race to Dijon ultimately saw the record-breaking Manx sprinter fined for drafting behind his team car, causing him to declare after the stage that “a TV camera is there to capture images and not to influence the race”.

“I’m alright, just about. I’m ready to chill out”

Beyond untimely collisions with race vehicles, Team GB’s build-up to the Olympic road race was also hampered by key rider and silver medallist at the 2012 road race Lizzie Deignan experiencing a “medical emergency” just 10 days before the event.

Speaking after the race, former world champion Deignan – who launched the move that pulled silver medallist Marianne Vos and fourth-place Blanka Vas clear – said her preparation for Sunday’s showpiece event was “absolutely abysmal”.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

“I got Covid during the Giro and raced by accident with it and really put myself in a hole. And then I was in hospital with a medical emergency 10 days ago, I spent the night in hospital. I’m alright, just about,” she told reporters at the finish, without giving any further details about what happened.

“So I knew that there was no final in the legs. I knew I had good shape, but I knew that after 120km I’d be struggling and I could see that Pfeiffer was feeling good.

“It’s been one of those build-ups where it’s hard to come into without the evidence of the work. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster. I’m ready to chill out.”

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Despite her fractured preparation, Deignan – who, alongside Henderson, bridged across to the lead group containing Georgi which formed after a crash split the peloton with under 50km to go – was one of the key instigators in pulling that ultimately successful group clear, driving it on the front in a bid to keep first Lotte Kopecky and then Lorena Wiebes at bay.

Deignan and Henderson then attacked several times in a bid to hammer home Britain’s numerical advantage and set up Georgi – whose own attack on the second ascent of Montmartre was quickly snuffed out – for a shot at the medals, the DSM-Firmenich rider eventually ceding to Faulkner and Kopecky the last time up the iconic cobbled climb, before outsprinting Spaniard Mavi García for a highly credible fifth place.

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

“From the outside it might have looked a bit odd,” Deignan, racing her final Olympic Games before retirement, said at the finish about Team GB’s attacking tactics. “But I thought, you know what, we’ve got three.

“Maybe from the outside you try and keep the three for as long as you can, but I knew actually the best thing I could do was establish that breakaway, give Pfeiffer a free ride, and as soon as Kopecky jumped across, that’s when I started attacking.

“They were complete suicide moves. I had no intention of riding away to a medal, because I was really struggling today with pain.”

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Meanwhile, Georgi said she was “little bit gutted” about missing out on a medal in Paris.

“I felt really good today. I was really hoping something special might happen and I’d be in a shout for the medals but the last time up the climb my legs said no, and I just saw them riding away,” the classics star said.

“It hurts a little but it’s my first Olympics, so I can’t be too disappointed with fifth. The Olympics is a completely different dynamic than at any other race. We’re never teammates on the road. So, it’s a combination of things that are new. It was a really unpredictable race, and we just have to try and do the best we can.”