Six injured in bus crash near venue

By Kate Holton

BEIJING (Reuters) - Three Chinese people were critically injured and three Croatian rowing team members hurt slightly when an Olympic bus traveling to the rowing venue collided with a private van on Wednesday.

"It was a major collision," said Australian rowing team doctor Greg Lovell, who was also on the bus.

Australian team officials said the three of the four Chinese people in the van were badly hurt.

"Three of the four people were critically injured and, according to our team doctor, they were very, very seriously injured but I don't know whether or not they died," Australian team spokesman David Pembroke said.

The bus had slammed into a steel pavilion by the roadside, ripping off most of its front on the driver's side, said a Reuters reporter who passed the scene a few minutes after the accident. The van appeared to have been thrown up to 10 meters by the impact with the bus, leaving a trail of debris.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it was aware of the accident.

"The IOC has been informed of a collision that took place around 1400 (0600 GMT) today between a bus transporting athletes to an Olympic rowing venue at Shunyi and a small van," the IOC said in a statement.

"Three Croatian team members -- two athletes and a coach -- have been treated for slight injuries," it said.

The Croatian rowers from the men's double scull Ante Kusurin and Mario Vekic raced in a semi-final later in the day but missed out on a qualifying place after finishing fourth by less than a second.

Australian doctor Lovell suffered mild scratches to his knee.

Marcus Free, the brother of Australian rower Duncan Free, was following the van in a taxi when the crash happened.

He and his cousin Jason Churchill managed to pull one of the Chinese men from the van but said the other three were trapped.

"We opened the door and there was one guy convulsing," Free told reporters at the course, adding that he was surprised no one was hurt on the bus.

"Two were unconscious straight away (and) ... the bus was leaking fuel which was a bit of concern."

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi and Karolos Grohmann; editing by Keith Weir)

(For more Olympic stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)