James Cracknell fractures skull in Arizona crash

The double Olympic medalist James Cracknell is in hospital in Arizona after suffering a fractured skull during a collision with a truck. Cracknell, the rowing champion turned endurance athlete and TV presenter, was cycling when he was hit by the lorry from behind early on Tuesday morning. He was in a critical condition until yesterday.
 
The 38-year-old is now said to be conscious and in a stable condition and his wife Beverly Turner (pictured above with Cracknell in June), his two children and his parents are with him in a Phoenix hospital. TV presenter Ben Fogle, with whom Cracknell has rowed across the Atlantic and trekked to the South Pole, has also flown to the US to be at his bedside.
 
Cracknell, who is one of Britain's most successful athletes ever with two Olympic gold medals and six World Championship titles, sustained a laceration to the back of his head and bruising to his brain after being thrown from his bike. However his life appears to have been saved by his crash helmet, which took the full force of the impact.
 
The accident is thought to have happened around 5.30am Tuesday local time on a quiet strip of road near the Arizona city of Winslow.
 
Cracknell had been less than a week into a 16-day challenge during which he hoped to cycle, run, row and swim from the west coast to the east coast of the US. His attempts to set a new endurance record were being filmed for a Discovery Channel series, Cracknell's Race Across America. However the production company, Dangerous Films, said they were not filming when the crash happened. ·