Cape Town - One of South Africa’s top junior cyclists remained in a coma on Monday morning after being knocked off his bike late last week.
Jevandre Pauls, 19, from East London, was riding on Polkadraai Road outside Stellenbosch on Friday when he was hit by a car.
His coach and manager at Bonitas Pro Cycling, Barry Austin, said on Monday: “They’re going to try to maybe take him out of an induced coma this afternoon and see if he can breathe, to test his lung function. But we’ll only know later.”
The young rider’s parents were at his side, having arrived on Saturday night.
This was his first year as an elite professional cyclist and Austin said Pauls was a “multiple junior cycling champ” with titles on the track and on the road.
“He’s part of the team building up to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016,” Austin said.
“Anyone who watched the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Momentum Cycle Tour would have seen him on that long breakaway from Smitswinkel, all the way to Chapman’s Peak, doing the job for his team.”
Pauls and a fellow-rider, Craig Symons, 23, were knocked down while training for the Western Province Track Championships at the Bellville Velodrome.
Austin said the driver stopped at the scene, and he understood the driver and witnesses had been interviewed by police.
Symons is understood to have suffered a fractured pelvis.
Pauls is at the Netcare private hospital in Kuils River.
Cape Argus