Casper Stornes Crashes Bike in Training, Out of Kona
Reigning IRONMAN World Champion Casper Stornes has crashed his bike during training and will be unable to start the world championship event in Kona in a few weeks. Stornes broke his collarbone and fractured a lumbar vertebrae in the crash.
“This is not an AI video of me being injured,” he said in a post on Instagram. “Apparently there is a storm coming to the island and I was unlucky and there was a hard blow on my front wheel and it got twisted out and I lost control of the bike and flew over my handlebars. Luckily enough I didn’t take out Gustav (Iden), who was on my wheel. How he got away from that one – it’s insane … I fell on my shoulder and broke my collarbone and I also broke or got a fracture in my L3 bone (vertebrae) in my back, so I am out of the race.”
Stornes said that he’d been feeling better since the race in Nice, coming down from altitude training a couple of days ago, only to have his Kona preparation on the Big Island come to an abrupt halt after just a couple of days. He hasn’t figured out if he’ll have surgery on his collarbone on the Big Island or head back home to Norway.
Hurricane Nolo
The storm that Stornes referred to is Hurricane Nolo, which is currently strengthening south of the Hawaii islands and could become a major hurricane. While the eye of the storm is expected to stay just offshore, severe weather conditions are expected, as some areas could see up to 20 to 35 inches of rain according to some reports. The storm could hit Hawaii today. The concern for forecasters is that the heaviest rain is likely to come down over the same part of the Big Island that got slammed by Hurricane Lala in August. Those areas are still trying to deal with flooded and washed out roads.
Hawaii’s Governor, Josh Green, has declared a state of emergency as the storm approaches Hawaii. This is the third time this month he’s had to do that. The Pacific has seen an increase in major storms this year thanks to the super El Niño that’s been affecting weather this year. Hurricane Nolo intensified into a Category 2 hurricane this morning.
IRONMAN Pro Series Impact
The crash won’t just mean Stornes loses out on a chance to defend his title – as we reported yesterday, the Norwegian star was in the drivers seat when it came to this year’s IRONMAN Pro Series.
To beat his countryman, current Pro Series leader Kristian Blummenfelt would have had to finish almost seven minutes ahead. The loss of Stornes hardly makes it a lock for Blummenfelt to win the Pro Series – he’ll still have to finish just over four minutes ahead of Marten Van Riel (BEL), just under a minute up on Jonas Schomburg (GER) and within six minutes of countryman Gustav Iden.
We join the many from the triathlon community in wishing Stornes a speedy recovery.
“Sending healing vibes @casperstornes!!” wrote three-time Kona champ Patrick Lange. “You will definitely come back stronger.”
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Ugh, what a huge bummer for Casper!
Really, really hate to hear that, Casper was definitely a threat for the win and this would’ve been his debut Kona too. He seemed to takeout ok but it must be crushing, especially with all 3 Norwegians looking capable of winning.
Good reminder related to the other thread why 70.3 Jones Beach was cancelled- granted he was going a lot faster but if someone like Casper can get caught out by a crosswind, imagine some of the newbies who have just ridden indoors on rainy/cold/wet roads with 40mph+ gusts… To this day I don’t know how I didn’t do exactly this in St George when that storm blew in out of nowhere at 70.3 world in 2021, I was accelerating down one of the hills probably 15-20 miles in where it’s still exposed desert just before Washington, and got blasted by the biggest wind I’ve ever felt, bike bent over 30 degrees and front wheel shook so much I thought I had broken something.