{"id":426186,"date":"2026-02-15T00:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T00:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/426186\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T00:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T00:12:08","slug":"silke-smulders-fractured-lumbar-vertebrae-in-stage-2-crash-at-setmana-valenciana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/426186\/","title":{"rendered":"Silke Smulders fractured lumbar vertebrae in stage 2 crash at Setmana Valenciana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Challenges continue to mount for Silke Smulders<\/a> at the start of the 2026 season. After being forced to miss the Women\u2019s Tour Down Under, the Dutch rider\u2019s return to racing was cut short when she crashed during stage 2 of the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old was unable to finish the stage, and her Liv-AlUla-Jayco<\/a> squad later confirmed the extent of her injuries. In a team statement, Liv-AlUla-Jayco said<\/a> that Smulders \u201ccrashed on stage 2 of the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana yesterday and was taken to hospital where a lumbar vertebrae fracture was confirmed. The Dutch rider will now return home to focus on her recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeedy recovery, Silke,\u201d the team added.<\/p>\n

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Chaos reigned on stage 2<\/a> when a crash at the head of the peloton disrupted the sprint trains with one kilometre to go. Smulders\u2019 teammate Letizia Paternoster was able to avoid the carnage and took second place in Vila-Real.<\/p>\n

Smulders, who recently extended her contract with the Australian squad through 2027, had been aiming to better her runner-up result from 2025 at the season\u2019s opening Women’s WorldTour event, the Santos Tour Down Under, a home race for the Liv-AlUla-Jayco squad.<\/p>\n

Those ambitions were stopped by a crash during a training ride, forcing her to miss the stage race. At the time, the team said that \u201cafter being assessed, the decision was made by the team for her to focus on making a full recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Challenges continue to mount for Silke Smulders at the start of the 2026 season. After being forced to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-426186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}