GERMANY: CYCLING - Australian women's cycling team remembers teammate Amy Gillett killed during training in Germany one year ago

The Australian women's cycling team has remembered their teammate Amy Gillett on Tuesday (July 18) ahead of the annual Tour of Thuringia in eastern Germany, one year to the day after Gillett was killed by a car while training for the race. Gillett was killed and five of her teammates were seriously injured when a young woman driver lost control of her car and hit the group on a country road as the cyclists were training near the town of Zeulenroda. Gillett's parents Denis and Mary Safe were at the crash site on the first anniversary of their daughter's death for the first time on Tuesday and asked not to be accompanied by the media. Heinz Wolf, an eyewitness to the accident who lives in the next town, said on Tuesday he "got the shivers when I see these cyclists now." "Such young life wasted," Wolf said. A memorial plaque on the side of the road near Zeulenroda put up by the Australian government, the Australian Institute of Sport and the Amy Gillett Foundation read "In memory of Amy Elizabeth Gillett, An Australian cyclist, tragically killed here while training with her team." Gillett's mother Mary Safe later said "it's been very important for Denis and I to come back a year since the tragedy." "We feel it's the right time for us to come to Germany. We've had a year in our grieving, a year down the track with our grieving and it's an appropriate time to come back, a good time to see the Australian team and to get behind them and support them." Her husband Denis Safe added "there is a lot of Australian girls that she rode with who are racing for other teams, different teams and we know that she would want us to come here and support them."

ITN Source | July 18, 2006

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