Australia's reigning Olympic BMX champion Logan Martin is thankful his bikes weren't in a van that was broken into as he prepares for the Paris Olympics in Belgium.
The 30-year-old Queenslander shared a series of videos and posts from a Brussels street on his social media showing local police investigating with the window of a black van shattered.
He said that he had personal items stolen, including his wallet and backpack.
"Our van got broken into last night, luckily my bikes weren't in there although my bike bags were in there, with some things in it," the Tokyo 2020 park gold medallist said in the Instagram video.
"It's a crazy start to the trip."
In a second video, Martin said that some of the gear was recovered behind a park bench, including gloves, a helmet, tools and massage table, through the use of bag tags.
The thieves devoured his stash of chocolate bars, leaving the wrappers with the discarded equipment.
"Luckily most of our stuff was in our room and we managed to recover a lot of it too," Martin wrote.
"I lost my wallet, backpack and a few other things but overall it didn't end up being too bad.
"It's unfortunate when people feel the need to do things like this."
Australian chef de mission and two-time Olympic track cycling gold medallist Anna Meares said the team was making sure Martin's preparations had not been affected too badly.
"What we do know is that Logan's bikes are OK," she said.
"From what I understand, it's the helmets and boots and things like that.
"His team and our team are working to replace those as quickly as possible."
