BMX rider crashes after official walks onto course at Tokyo Olympics

A Dutch BMX rider was involved in a crash with an official at the Tokyo Olympics who was attempting to cross over the course.

Niek Kimmann was warming up ahead of the start of the BMX competition on Thursday, navigating a couple of jumps and moguls before he abruptly comes to a stop, having collided with an official in the middle of the track, crouching down as he's hit.

Kimmann reports that he has a sore knee, and hopes to still be ready for the start of competition in a few days, while the condition of the official is not yet known.

"So this is what happened today," Kimmann said, sharing a video of the incident. "Hit an official that wanted to cross the second straight. Hope the official is OK. My knee is sore, but will do my best to be ready for Thursday! Thanks everyone for the messages, appreciate it!"

Kimmann is a world champion BMX rider, having followed up his 2014 junior win with the senior title the very next year aged 19, only the second Dutch rider to claim the world title.

>>> Mathieu van der Poel 'didn't know they would remove ramp', which caused crash at Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo is the 25-year-old's second Olympics, having finished seventh in Rio in 2016. He fell in the quarter-finals, suffering an ankle ligament and metatarsal injury.

In 2018, he also witnessed the terrible accident of his friend and fellow rider Jelle van Gorkom, who rode into a safety chain on a BMX track at 60km/h, immediately losing consciousness, fracturing his face, suffering a tear in the skull and damaging his spleen, liver and kidneys. Kimmann was the only one present who witnessed the crash.

Van Gorkom, who won silver at Rio, spent two weeks in a coma, and subsequently retired from the sport as he began a long rehabilitation process.

Kimmann's is the latest incident for Dutch cyclists in Tokyo, with the women's road race team having thought they were racing for gold, when in fact it was silver after Anna Kiesenhofer was still up the road, unbeknownst to Annemiek van Vleuten, while in the mountain bike Mathieu van der Poel crashed after a ramp was removed from the practice laps of the course for the real race.