There are many riders who have suffered serious injuries this spring. Remco Evenepoel was actually not too bad, Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard were in a much worse condition. And that can have its consequences.
Evenepoel and Van Aert return
Because although the cliché is that “you will come back stronger”, that is certainly not always true. This is what Sports and Inspection Doctor Tom Teulingkx says in Het Nieuwsblad. But he has good news for both Evenepoel and Van Aert about their injuries and the consequences of their careers.
“These are injuries of which you can say: if everything goes well, you can classify them, so to speak. You can already predict that Evenepoel and Van Aert will reach a very high level within a few months. Those injuries will have no effect on the rest of their career,” assures Teulingkx.
However, Van Aert has managed to surprise him before. “If you look at Van Aert’s injury from a number of years ago during that fall in the 2019 Tour, where we are talking about a very serious muscle injury, then it is really great that he is at the same level or even at a higher level has returned.”
A lot of doubt about Vingegaard
And then there is Jonas Vingegaard. Teulingkx has less good news for the Dane. He fears that he may never be the same again. “Vingegaard spent almost two weeks in hospital with organ damage. You almost have to compare that with what Froome experienced (he broke his pelvis, ed.).”
“These are multi-traumas: many injuries that come together and which all together give a much poorer prognosis for recovery or where a much longer recovery period is in any case required. Such a collapsed lung must recover very slowly. That is part of your engine and not part of your body. That’s a different story,” the doctor suggests the worst.
Tags: Consequences careers Van Aert Vingegaard Sports doctor fears worst
