Downing down but not out

Downing, 36
(image credit: Adambro CC BY-SA 3.0) 

Rapha-Condor-Sharp's Dean Downing suffered a crash at 60kph during training today but escaped serious injury, says manager John Herety.

Herety, who represented Great Britain at the 1980 Olympic Games and won the National Road Race Championship two years later, says he thought he was seeing the end of a career when the rider crashed and expected broken bones - but thankfully Downing, who will turn 37 on the 24th of this month, sustained only grazes. Herety described his initial reaction as "one of those bottom of the stomach sick feelings today, visions of a rider's career ending, thankfully not the case."

"Down but not out, the leg end!" Herety told us. "[He] continues his training camp with a sore ar$%!"