Sometimes it is better to have friends in a race than teammates…

At the Super League Triathlon event in France on Sunday Nicole van der Kaay of New Zealand was violently knocked down by Italian teammate Alice Betto while the two were riding down a perfectly straight road.

The incident happened when Betto veered into van der Kaay’s line and pushed her into the barriers. While it might have been an accident, a closer look at the video seems to show Betto intentionally closing the narrow gap to the barriers, lowering her shoulder and then pushing van der Kaay into the barrier. Then, to add insult to injury, Betto looked back to see (and hear) the carnage and still pushed on without a second thought.

Tough love teammate! See you at the finish.

In addition, both Betto and van der Kaay were already so far behind race leaders they were deemed not competitive and soon pulled from the race by officials.

Fortunately, van der Kaay emerged from the ordeal relatively unscathed and (like a good teammate) tried to absolved her teammate of any blame for the incident.

“My race ended early, but no broken bones, only heart,” she posted on Instagram. “This video does not show it all. This was an accident, unfortunately crashes happen in races. We pick ourselves up, lick our wounds and prepare for the next race.”

Photo Credit: Instagram/nicolevdkaay

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