Mountain biking: Quin positive after crash

Vanessa Quin has made a horror start to her World Cup downhill campaign, crashing in the first event in Vigo, Spain and breaking her arm badly.

Quin qualified sixth for the final run but a burst of rain an hour beforehand turned the rock-based course into a slippery quagmire and caused carnage through the field.

Quin broke both bones just above her right wrist and needed hospitalisation. She was heading back to her base in France where she'll need plates inserted in her arm.

"This is the flip-side to racing - I accept that but I don't really like it that much," Quin said from her hospital bed.

"It still beats working but only just - at least I'm still smiling though."

Fellow New Zealand elite woman Scarlett Hagen also came off her bike, smashing her elbow. It's the opposite arm from the one she broke in four places after a crash in the last World Cup event in Scotland last year.

Several other big crashes were recorded, with broken bones a constant theme.

With 2004 world champion Quin out, British rider Tracey Moseley scored a win in the women's downhill.

Quin beat Moseley at the Oceania Championship race in Rotorua in March, winning ahead of Sabrina Jonnier (France), with Moseley third.

Her last outing was the Sea Otter Classic in California last month, when she finished second in the dual slalom, third in the downhill and sixth in the mountain cross, putting her third overall for the Omnium.

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES