Maarten de Jonge, a cyclist with Malaysia's Terengganu Cycling Team, has good reason to consider himself lucky. The Dutchman was planning to fly on the Malaysia Airlines flight which was shot down by a missile in Ukraine yesterday, but fate led him to find a cheaper ticket from another carrier and escape the tragedy in which 298 people died.

Amazingly, this is not the first time that the cyclist has narrowly avoided death. A last-minute change also saw De Jonge avoid travelling on the Malaysian company's flight which disappeared in March with 229 passengers on board. The Dutchman was planning to take the flight departing from Kuala Lumpur airport to compete in a race in Taiwan, but chose another flight which did not include a stopover.

De Jonge has competed in the Tour de Taiwan, the Tour of Thailand and Le Tour de Filipinas this year. He returned home in June to race in the Ronde Van Zeeland Seaports in the Netherlands and in his country's national championships, where he finished in 35th place, 55 seconds behind Langeveld. Now he needs to return to Asia and initially planned to take Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.