Mathieu van der Pol of the Netherlands crashed hard early in the mountain bike race at the Tokyo Olympics. Mathieu van der Pol of the Netherlands was a strong contender in the event and looked comfortable in the early stages of the technical, hilly course. However, on a short downhill section, he was slammed to the deck wearing the Tour de France yellow jersey. At the time of the accident, he was in the top five. After sitting on the ground for nearly a minute, it appeared that he had dropped out of the race, but he eventually got up and resumed racing. The Dutch rider held the lead group for over four laps with just over a minute to go, but he had already missed the medal and the rider was in visible pain and eventually abandoned the race with less than two laps to go.