Alvarado stumbles off stage with a knee injury in Maasmechelen: 'Pain, I have a lot of pain'

In the World Cup cross at Maasmechelen, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado had to settle for second place. Fem van Empel was the better of Alvarado in Belgian Limburg, who also had a hard fall on the way and was clearly bothered by it.

'I felt pretty good. I could keep up with Fem quite well, except that I went down on the second lap. Then Fem was really gone. And with that I've actually told the story of the day,' she revealed in the flash interview. 'I also went down pretty hard, so then it was really done. I pulled my knee open and my shoe broke. That was really unfortunate.

IDLProcycling spoke briefly after the race with Alvarado, who stumbled down the stage steps with an ugly wound on her knee. 'How am I doing? Pain, I'm in a lot of pain,' she laughed like a peasant woman with a toothache. 'I fell right after that beam. The fall caused that shoe to come loose and I had to change. So it was over right there," and then, with a face contorted with pain, removed some mouth fluid from her knee, which of course had priority at that moment.

So the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider was clearly suffering after her crash, which she also felt during the race. I was forced to take it easy. Only one lap later I could really go full throttle again. By then, unfortunately, the bird had already left. I knew pretty quickly that it was over.'

'I personally think we could have competed with each other for quite a long time, because I felt really strong,' Alvarado then lamented the duel with Van Empel that went wrong. 'I didn't have the impression that she would just unload me. Unfortunately it turned out differently.' In any case, Alvarado can travel to the European Championships organized in France with a lot of confidence. 'Hopefully I will recover well from my fall. It would be nice to be able to fight the whole race then, instead of just one lap.'