Swift hopes to be back for Beijing

The Team Sky cycle star, from Anston, had a bad crash on stage two of the Circuit Franco-Belge last week.

But despite having to pull out of the race and being taken to hospital by Team Sky’s medical staff, Swift is still keen to complete his season.

A spokesman for the team told the Guardian: “Ben is still pencilled in for the Tour of Beijing.”

“He’s seeing the physio over the next few days and we’ll know a bit more about the injury and the extent of the damage then.”

A number of riders went down in the crash, with 70km remaining in the stage between Antoing and Poperinge.

Sep Vanmarcke of Garmin-Sharp broke his collarbone as he and four Team Sky cyclists were involved in the incident.

Team Sky doctor Phillip Riley described the crash: “It was quite a nasty crash and a number of riders went down.”

“We had three riders involved in it but Ian Stannard and Chris Sutton were able to remount.”

“Swifty was in some severe pain in his back so was taken to hospital for some investigations.”

The diagnosis was a fracture to his 11th vertebrae.

With the Tour of Beijin scheduled for Tuesday 9th October, Swift is now in a race against time to prove his fitness, but he already begun to get back into training.

On Sunday he tweeted: “Managed to get an hour in on the bike today.”

“Happy with that, back was pretty sore. But hoping to still make my final race of the season.”