Staged a miraculous comeback to win an Olympic silver medal in Beijing, just eight months after breaking her neck in a horrific crash in the cycling Track World Cup in Los Angeles. She fractured vertebrae near the base of the skull, dislocated her right shoulder and had heavy skin grazing, torn tendons and muscle tissue.
She said: "When the doctors tell you 'two millimetres more and you would have been a quadriplegic', it’s very, very scary.”
Fellow Australian cyclist Ryan Bayley, who saw the accident, said: “It made me sick. I didn't think she was going to get back up." But not only did she get up, she recovered well enough to race in Beijing and reach the final of the Women's Individual Sprint where she lost in the final ride-off to Britain’s Victoria Pendleton.
