Olympic mountain biker suffers horror crash as broadcaster refuses to show replays

French mountain biker Loana Lecomte was battered and bruised but escaped serious injury after a gruelling crash at the Paris Olympics. In front of adoring home fans, Lecomte went down hard on a rocky section of the Women's Cross-Country Mountain Biking course in Paris.

More than three quarters of an hour into the event in Elancourt, Lecomte came a cropper during a particularly difficult, rocky section, and flew over the front of her handlebars.

The 24-year-old's head appeared to take the brunt of the impact and she was briefly knocked unconscious. Broadcasters cut away once they realised Lecomte's wellbeing was in doubt, and refused to show replays of the terrifying crash.

Lecomte was carried away from the scene on a stretcher as supportive crowd members chanted her name. After the race, Lecomte's coach explained: "Loana has a facial trauma that will not be serious in the end, she will recover and come back stronger."

French mountain biker Yvan Clolus added: "We can imagine her pain. We saw her ready today, in the first two laps. Loana is instinctive. She comes from alpine skiing, she is not afraid of commitment at all."

Lecomte has since been pictured with wounds to her face and a bandaged jaw. While the home fans in Paris were devastated to see Lecomte fail to finish the race, another Frenchwoman - Pauline Ferrand-Prevot - managed to take the gold.

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And she did so in dominant fashion, with her time of 1:26:02 three minutes clear of American Haley Batten and Swede Jenny Rissveds, who clinched the final two podium spots. Team GB's best finisher was Evie Richards in fifth.

"I’m super happy," Richards said after the race. "I had a plan just to start off top 10 and push up and finish strong. I definitely felt like I finished strong and that’s all I could do. It was so fast, so hot and so noisy you could not really think.

"I didn’t want to be flagging at the end, I wanted to finish strong and show people I can push when I do attack. I was sticking to my own plan, if it finished with a medal then amazing, but it finished with fifth and that is all I could do today.

"Fifth at the Olympic Games is insane. Even just then, I was just crying with my mum, we’re so proud, it’s not just my dream it’s everyone’s dream so I’m just so proud to race my second Olympics. I can’t quite believe it."