Team GB’s Ollie Wood Appears to be HEADBUTTED by Dutch Rival Before Crashing Painfully to the Track

A day after ‘rugby on wheels’ came the butt on the bike as relations between British and Dutch riders took another aggressive turn on Saturday.

The flashpoint came with 40 laps remaining in the Madison when Team GB’s Ollie Wood was suddenly catapulted into a hard fall after his helmet was struck from behind by Jan Willem van Schip.

It was inconclusive from television replays whether the contact was deliberate, though it looked ugly inside the velodrome, with the collision leaving Woods sprawled across the boards.

He required a concussion assessment at the trackside before continuing the 50km race and ultimately finishing 10th alongside Mark Stewart. The Netherlands were later disqualified for ‘improper conduct and behavior that endangers another rider (blow with the helmet)’.

The incident came 24 hours after Team GB’s Jack Carlin was accused by the Dutch of ‘rugby on wheels’ for a maneuver in which he veered up the track and into Dutchman Hoogland in the individual sprint. Fans from the Netherlands then booed Carlin when he later collected his bronze medal.

Naturally, the clash between Wood and Van Schip might be painted as retaliation, although the Brit admitted he had no idea how it occurred.

After limping into the interview area with a heavily swollen knee, he said: ‘He hit me so hard. I felt like a crash test dummy.

‘I will survive. I didn’t see anything.’

Wood added: ‘It’s just a bit different when you get hit from behind – you don’t see it coming. There are a lot of people resting and riding at any one time. Instead of taking a high line around the track, I thought he’d cut it a bit fine and just plowed into me.

‘I’ve not watched it back. I’m trying to catch my breath. I have no clue, absolutely no clue. All I know is I got hit hard from behind by literally the biggest rider on the track.

‘Everyone’s cognitive functions started to decline rapidly at one given point – you could see there were people having laps of concentration. When there are people all over the track, people are inevitably going to collide with wheels or whatever.

‘I don’t know what I have done but my knee hurts and my a*** hurts.

‘I feel like I’ve been rear-ended by a lorry.’

While the crash was dramatic, it had little apparent influence on the pair’s medal prospects as they were already a long way short of the podium in the 200-lap bedlam of this format. Portugal took the gold from Italy and Denmark.

Six-time Olympic champion Chris Hoy, commentating for the BBC, blamed the Dutch for the collision, which saw Wood taking the inside lane on his down-lap and Van Schip attempting to pass him on the outside. Van Schip initially received no warning and Team GB did not protest before the Netherlands were kicked out hours later.

‘It was Van Schip’s error there,’ Hoy said. ‘You are trying to skim past the rider and not go too far on the bend but he misjudged it.

‘He whacked him on the head. I would not be surprised if he is concussed from that. He would not be expecting it either. His body would be loose and completely relaxed and then out of nowhere getting a massive hit. I felt for him there.

‘It is a millimeter of Lycra and you have a bit of polystyrene on your head and that’s it and you are traveling at 40mph plus. It is a tough sport.

‘We were just discussing how often an elite endurance rider crashes, it would be half a dozen times a year. Some of them are fine, you slide and you lose some skin but you could break a bone or get a concussion and disrupt your whole season. It is a tough sport.’

Laura Kenny added: ‘I was surprised like Chris said that he did not get a warning or even points taken off of him. The men’s Madison is pretty much full of gas. They would have been going full speed then.’

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