Kat Matthews hit by car while training for Kona

Britain’s Kat Matthews has been hit by a car while on a training ride in Texas and is recovering in hospital.

The 2021 Ironman World Championship runner up was riding with teammates, including two-time Ironman world champ Patrick Lange, when the incident happened.

In an Instagram Story, Matthews wrote: “A car turned [sic] into me and bashed me up.”

Her husband, Mark Matthews, has given more detail in a series of posts to the Stories on his Instagram profile.

In his initial post, shared with an image showing the damage to the car, he said: “Just to be clear, Kat is ok and in good hands with hopefully no long term injuries.”

He followed that up with further updates saying: “To let people know: she will make a full recovery. Has no severe breaks but has had to have a lot of stitches and has a couple of tiny cracks. Which, given the state of the car that hit her, I think we can all agree basically makes her Wolverine.

“Sure she will be on to update tomorrow but is fairly fragile and on some hefty painkillers at the moment.”

A few hours later, in his latest update at the time of writing, Matthews said: “Update: Small fractures in scull, two vertebrae, sternum and a dozen or so stitches. Waiting on last MRI results.”

Speaking about the incident to American publication Triathlete, Lange gave more detail about how events unfolded.

He said: “We were riding on a quiet road we have done a dozen times before and a car from the other direction just turned across the road and took her out.

“Luckily the ambulance and other first responders were there quickly. She had no chance avoiding the crash at pretty high speed on flat fast road.”

He also said that Matthews was “unconscious and concussed at first” and that he “tried to hold her as stable as possible until ambulance arrived”.

Matthews, who successfully went sub-eight hours over a long-distance course in June, had been in Texas to work through her final training block before heading to Kona for the 2022 Ironman World Championship, with the women’s race due to take place on 6 October.

Top image credit: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images for Ironman