Paralympic champion Alex Zanardi in critical condition after lorry crash

Paralympic champion handcyclist and ex-Formula 1 racing driver Alex Zanardi is in critical condition in hospital in Italy tonight with serious head injuries after a collision involving a lorry while training on Friday afternoon.

At the time of writing, 2.20am Italian time, the home page of sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport is given over to the 53-year-old; a national sporting icon after coming back from having both legs amputated following a motor racing crash to win four Paralympic gold medals on a handbike, the country fears the worst.

Zanardi underwent an operation lasting three hours on Friday evening at the Santa Maria delle Scotte hospital in Siena, Tuscany. He had been taken there by helicopter following the crash near Pienza.

Mario Valentini, the coach of the Italian national paracycling team, was riding with him and recounted what happened.

He said that on a long, straight descent with a gradient of around 4 per cent, Zanardi “made a risky move” and lost control of his handbike, crossing into the opposite lane, and hit the lorry head-on.

“The lorry driver wasn’t in the wrong, Alex was,” Valentini continued.

Speaking later from the hospital, he added: “We are putting our hopes into this operation, our hearts are with his family and his son. Alex and I are very close, he treats me like a father.”

The word “hero” is overused in the press when describing athletes, but Zanardi is among the few who truly merit that description.

Following an eight-year Formula 1 career, he lost both legs in a crash during the 2001 American Memorial Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) race held at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Klettwitz, Germany in September 2001.

He returned to motor racing, winning the 2005 Italian Superturismo championship, but it is in handcycling that he has enjoyed his greatest success, winning two gold medals and one silver at both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, and he also has 12 UCI World Championship titles.