Drug abuse and road cycling may not be strangers these days, but it’s pretty rare to see bullets flying during a race because of it.
That’s exactly what happened in the Ironman 70.3 triathlon event in Puerto Rico last week though, with two riders shot after getting caught in the crossfire of a gangland shooting in which a convicted drug dealer was killed.
The event took place in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, and the competitors hit – 49 year-old local Miguel Arroya Ramos and 26 year-old American Liz Boivin – were in the cycling stage of their showcase at the time of fire.
Boivin was struck with a bullet in her left calf, while Ramos took three hits on the left hand side of his body. Both are said to be in a stable condition following the cycling nightmare.
Speaking on Facebook, Boivin posted that the shrapnel from her hit had “come out clean with no issues”, and she remains confident of competing at an athletic event in Boston in the near future, because, y’know, she’s clearly hard as nails.
Boivin was struck with a bullet in her left calf, while Ramos took three hits on the left hand side of his body…
The Puerto Rican event carried on after the shooting on the advice of police, with the organisers saying: “The San Juan police have indicated that this was an isolated incident, the race and athletes were not a target, and that the course is safe for the race to continue.”
The local field office of the FBI is now involved in investigating the incident alongside local police, who found Jose Ramos Tapia, a local who had recently been released from a prison sentence served for selling drugs, dead in a car following the shootout.
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