'No serious damage' – Lucinda Brand escapes serious injury following her crash at the Niel Superprestige

After initially fearing the worst, Lucinda Brand was not seriously injured when she hit the barrier during the Superprestige Jaarmarktcross cyclo-cross race at Niel on Wednesday.

Early on during round three of the season-long Superprestige series, World Champion Brand briefly lost control of her bike, hitting the barrier and twisting her ankle as she put her foot down.

Despite what was apparently an innocuous incident, her discomfort was clear immediately; the 37-year-old first grimaced, then fell into tears, before abandoning the race she had hoped to win for a fifth time.

After the incident, her Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Poetsbureau Lions team manager, former World Champion Sven Nys, was fearful Brand had suffered a severe injury, telling Play Sport: “If Lucinda has tears in her eyes, that is usually not a good sign. She is quite a tough cookie, which is why I am a bit worried now.”

Then, in a post on the team’s Instagram account, he added: “She can’t put force on her foot right now, so I think it’s important that we monitor that and make sure that nothing was damaged.

“Hoping we won’t lose her for the rest of the season.”

However, Nys has since been reassured. “Everything is okay. No serious damage was detected; she just needs to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Taping the foot is important now, though,” he told Belgian paper Het Laatste Nieuws.

The season continues apace this weekend, and Brand would have been expected to start round four of the Superprestige at Merkplas on Saturday and Sunday’s Bollekesccross, the second round of the X2O Badkamers Trofee, a series she leads, after winning the Koppenbergcross, and which she has won on four previous occasions. However, following her injury, Brand’s participation is yet to be confirmed.

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