{"id":560431,"date":"2026-03-24T05:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/560431\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:04:09","slug":"former-world-champion-horrified-by-milano-sanremo-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/560431\/","title":{"rendered":"Former world champion horrified by Milano-Sanremo crash"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nIn a podcast for SBS Sports<\/a>, the Australian analyzes why such incidents continue to occur: “It feels like the more we concentrate on safety in races, the worse crashes seem to get. We’ve seen some pretty bad ones so far this season, but that pile-up on the descent of the Cipressa during the women’s Milano-Sanremo made me audibly yelp.”<\/p>\n

But seeing the pile up on Cipressa descent, it doesn’t give the former time trial world and olympic champion a sudden urge to go and return to racing just for Sanremo. Quite the contrary.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, the first thing that goes through my mind when I see footage like this is ‘I’m so glad I’m not racing anymore, and that I made it out alive.'”<\/p>\n

Looking for a cause, Brown ultimately agrees that it’s been above all a rider mistake from Niewiadoma. Although anyone could’ve crashed in that corner. “Kasia was leading down the descent of Cipressa when she took a bit too much risk and lost control of her bike. Because of a blind corner, countless riders behind her had no time to brake and nowhere to go.”<\/p>\n

\"Grace<\/p>\n

Grace Brown’s specialty was timetrialing, but she had also won one edition of Liege-Bastogne-Liege<\/p>\n

There’s incredible amount of crashes<\/p>\n

With a clear notion among cycling stakeholders to improve on safety, the sport continues to grow more and more hectic – and injury reports caused by in-race crashes continue to pile up. Brown wonders how is that possible…<\/p>\n

“As part of the SafeR initiative, the UCI has been reviewing injury data since 2014, showing almost a 400% increase in rider injuries at a professional level in 12 years.”<\/p>\n

“So why are crashes getting worse? I think it the answer has less to do with the rules and more to do with what’s at stake. There’s more money in the sport now; in prize money and contracts, but I think the biggest shift is visibility. Racing has never been more watched and riders know it. But if the root cause is partly psychological – riders performing for cameras, chasing contracts, justifying the risk because the reward has never felt bigger – then no rulebook is going to fix it on its own,” she points out.<\/p>\n

“The sport needs to be honest about what it’s asking of riders, and riders need to be honest with themselves about why they take the risks they do.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps, it’s sometimes better to lean back for a moment and gain a different perspective to see the risks riders are taking. “That’s something I always struggled to grapple with during my career, and it took stepping away from the sport to see it more clearly,” she concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a podcast for SBS Sports, the Australian analyzes why such incidents continue to occur: “It feels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,22953,276480,85,23293],"class_list":["post-560431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-grace-brown","tag-milano-sanremo-women","tag-sports","tag-womens-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}