Summary Mountain biker and former age-group world champion Burry Stander was killed in a road accident.
South African Olympic mountain biker and former age-group world champion Burry Stander was killed in a road accident while training near his home on Thursday. He was just 25.
The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee confirmed the two-time Olympian s death and said the country s leading mountain biker died after a collision with a taxi in the Kwazulu-Natal province on South Africa s east coast.
Stander competed at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics and came fifth last year in the mountain bike race at the London Games. He was also a former under-19 and under-23 world champion and South Africa s biggest star in the sport and one of the world s top riders.
"I m totally shattered," SASCOC president Gideon Sam said, calling Stander "talented, ultra-competitive but at the same time extremely humble and a true gentleman."
Sam said the entire South African sporting community mourned Stander, a message that was underlined by a flood of tributes on social media from fellow sportsmen and women but also from politicians and celebrities.
Multiple Paralympic medalist and double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius said on Twitter he was "utterly devastated" by Stander s death.
"A South African Icon and sporting great. RIP my friend," Pistorius wrote.
Cycling South Africa said Stander was the country s most successful mountain biker and "a true icon and sporting role model."
Stander won South Africa s Cape Epic stage race with Swiss teammate Christoph Sauser in 2011 and the pair successfully defended their title in 2012.
"Never felt so empty since my dad passed away when I was a kid. (at)africanmtbkid I will never forget you," Sauser posted on Twitter, using Stander s Twitter name.
The national body said the circumstances of the accident near Stander s home in Shelley Beach, south of Durban, were still being investigated. Stander was the second leading cyclist to be killed in a road accident in South Africa in recent years after Carla Swart died in January 2011 when she was hit by a truck while on a training ride.
