In another stroke of misfortune for the Rio Olympics there has been a fire break out near the shooting venue which is adjacent to the both the mountain bike course and the BMX venue.

The fire apparently started at around 4pm (local time) in some scrub land and strong winds fanned the flames and pushed the fire towards the mountain bike venue. There are unconfirmed reports that the MTB course had to be evacuated – although UCI have denied this.

There are reports that the fire started because a controlled rubbish burn spread out of control in high winds.

Thankfully some heavy rain arrived eventually and helped to quell the forest fire. At time of writing the damage had yet to be inspected by officials but we should have an update later this morning.

The official statement as it stands: “The goal now is to prevent the fire reaching the surrounding community. Rio 2016 is assessing the impact on the mountain bike course. There were no injuries.

“High winds made the fire advance close to the mountain bike venue. During the firefighters work to contain it, the fire changed it’s direction and doesn’t represent any risk to the venue,”

The first race due to happen at the Deodoro course is the women’s cross country mountain biking this Saturday 20th August. The men’s race is the day after.

We’ll update this story as and when we get more news.

UPDATE!

Here’s a couple of reassuring Tweets from “UCI mountain bike fell” Simon Burney:

It looks like the race should be pretty much unaffected and go ahead as planned this weekend. Phew!