Paris Olympics 2024: Katie Archibald out of games after freak garden accident

The 30-year-old cyclist says she has broken two bones and ripped two ligaments, and so Team GB “won’t involve me”.

Double Olympic champion Katie Archibald is out of the Paris games after breaking bones and ligaments in a freak accident.

The 30-year-old cyclist, who won gold medals in 2016 and 2020, suffered multiple injuries after tripping over a step in her garden.

Writing on Instagram, she said she “managed to, somehow” dislocate an ankle, break her tibia and fibula bones, and “rip two ligaments off the bone” on Tuesday.

Regarding the Great Britain Olympic team, “I’ve been told [it] won’t involve me”, she said, offering “a hundred apologies”.

She was a strong contender for gold in three disciplines: omnium, madison and team pursuit.

The Scottish athlete had surgery on Wednesday to “pin the bones back together and reattach the ligaments”.

“A hundred thank yous for the fabulous doctors, nurses, radiographers, porters, physios, surgeons and more at Manchester Royal Infirmary,” she said on social media.

“I’ve been in full princess mode (assuming it took a full team of A&E doctors and nurses to get Cinderella’s foot back in line with the slipper).”

Archibald is “still processing” her news, she said, but wanted to confirm it publicly rather than “leaving it to the grapevine”.

British Cycling said it “shared” her “heartbreak” and lamented the “cruel manner in which she has been denied the chance to ride for the medals she so coveted in Paris”.

The team will provide Archibald with the “best possible support”, it added.

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It has been a very difficult period for Archibald, who won the team pursuit gold at Rio in 2016 and then topped the podium in the madison alongside Dame Laura Kenny at Tokyo in 2020.

She missed the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham after colliding with a vehicle amid a series of injury setbacks.

That summer, her partner, mountain biker Rab Wardell, died after going into cardiac arrest as he lay in bed next to her.

The Paris Olympics take place between 26 July and 11 August.