21st spent dealing with girls’ cycling team crash

One of Hamilton’s most promising young cyclists spent her 21st birthday picking up the pieces of a major cycle crash near Taupiri on Tuesday night.

Pip Sutton is the coach for Waikato Diocesan School for Girls’ senior A cycling team, and was put in a position she never wants to experience again.

The five Dio cyclists and their coach were on a training ride on Tuesday afternoon when they were in a collision with a car at the intersection of Dawson and Lake Roads about 4.25pm.

Sutton, who has represented New Zealand in cycling, studies sport and biology at Waikato University and coaches the girls in her spare time.

She said she saw the car slow down coming up to the intersection, so she assumed the driver had seen the bunch.

The next second, she was on top of the heap.

“We were just tangled in a ball, we had to get the bikes out and see what we had to work with,” she said.

Sutton, who is a previous Dio cyclist, rang an ambulance before calling the school and the girls’ parents to tell them of the accident.

“Parents had to come from Rotorua and New Plymouth, so I had to let them know,” she said.

She then rang a previous cycling mother to come and pick up the thousands of dollars’ worth of bikes that were lying on the side of the road.

“I just said to her, I know you’re not involved in any way, but we’ve had an accident can you please come and help.”

The Westpac Rescue helicopter flew two of the girls, who were first thought to be seriously injured, to Waikato hospital while two ambulances drove the other four.

Parents, boyfriends, coaches and teachers gathered at Waikato Hospital’s emergency department while the school girls were sent away for x-rays.

And although she complained of a sore shoulder, Sutton made sure her girls were seen to before herself and wasn’t looked at until about 8pm.

“The doctor came to me at about 8.30. I said, ’I’m all good ay?’ He shook his head and told me I had a broken wrist so would have to have a cast on. I’m pretty gutted but am just glad everyone is alive,” she said.

Sutton arrived home to her flat that night, where she celebrated her 21st birthday with lemon meringue pie and sparkling grape juice.

Sutton said the accident will definitely not stop her from coaching, or getting back on her bike herself.

She thinks she will be back riding in no time, even if it is only on the wintrainer in the lounge of her flat before she can be back on the road.

“I still love cycling and they’re great girls to coach,” she said.

Messages of support have been flowing in on social media, some which describe Sutton as a legend. She is “one of the toughest girls I’ve ever met,” said one fellow cyclist.

All the cyclists were released from hospital late Tuesday evening.