Surgery for Van Vleuten after Worlds crash

Individual time trial world champion Annemiek van Vleuten is recovering from surgery performed on Monday to fix a fracture of her tibial plateau, which she suffered in a crash during the UCI Road World Championships elite women's road race on Saturday.

The Dutch woman posted a thumbs-up photo on Twitter, saying that she would be in a brace that would prevent her from bending her knee for four weeks.

Van Vleuten went down in a crash with Great Britain's Dani King on a traffic island with 95km to go in the women's race. She remounted and chased back on, and helped to spark the winning move by teammate Anna van der Breggen with 42km to go.

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Not realizing she had a piece of bone broken off inside her knee, Van Vleuten continued to the finish, crossing the line in seventh place with teammate Amy Pieters, 7:05 behind the new world champion.

It wasn't until she got off her bike that she realized the knee might be worse than the dislocation she feared during the race. Unable to walk, Van Vleuten was ushered away to an ambulance and taken for x-rays, where the break was discovered.

Operation done. Everything fixed again: no bones flying around in my knee anymore . My leg will be in a brace for at least 4 weeks. No bending of my knee, no walking, etc, so the bones can grow together again. pic.twitter.com/MmJCDzdVgq

— Annemiek van Vleuten (@AvVleuten) October 1, 2018

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