THE minibus taxi driver involved in the collision that killed Olympic mountain biker Burry Stander on Thursday will appear in the Port Shepstone Magistrate’s Court on Monday, police said.
The man will be prosecuted on a charge of culpable homicide, Col Jay Naicker said on Friday.
Stander, 25, was returning from a training ride in Shelly Beach on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast on Thursday afternoon when the fatal collision took place.
Beeld newspaper reported that it happened outside his cycling shop, Concept Cyclery. Stander’s father, Charles, the shop manager, heard the crash.
Durban’s Daily News reported that local cyclists would dedicate a moonlight mass ride on Saturday to Stander. The paper quoted witness Kevin Govender as saying that Stander’s family was at the scene within minutes of the accident.
Mr Govender said the taxi driver had been in shock and "seemed like he did not know what to do", adding: "He told me it was his bad luck and said that he had not seen the cyclist and did not know how the accident happened."
Stander, who held the title of UCI Mountain Bike World Cup under-23 men’s cross-country champion in 2009, competed in several races around the world since 2008.
He won the Absa Cape Epic race with team partner Christoph Sauser last year and in 2011, and in 2010 he came third in the Mountain Bike World Championships held in Quebec, Canada.
At the Beijing Games, Stander finished 15th in the cross-country mountain bike race. Last year, he reached fifth place in the same event at the London Games, narrowly missing out on a medal.
With Sapa
