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"I'll be back!" A Determined Fabian Cancellara has London Olympic Gold in his sights

Four pins in his collarbone, back training within a week, back racing next month, the target Olympic Gold

Speaking to the press today following successful surgery to pin the quadruple fracture of his collarbone he suffered during Sunday's Tour of Flanders Fabian Cancellara said he would be back training within a week and possibly as soon as Thursday. Spartacus aims to be racing again in May.

According to a statement from his team, Cancellar would be fit to train on an 'ergometer'* but he is still suffering from a lot of muscle pain following his crash in a feed zone during middle part of the race. 

"I'm happy that the surgery went so well, but I'm still in pain. I'm going to rest a couple of days, maybe even a week, and then resume training. I had two major goals this season: the classics and the Olympics. The spring campaign is unfortunately over for me now. Because I had planned a break after the classics anyway, my build-up towards London will not change. The plan is that I return to competition in May, possibly the Bayern Rundfahrt, as I did last year."

Cancellara has made no secret of his targeting of Olympic gold in London and he will undoubtedly be one of the major threats to home favourite, Mark Cavendish and his Team Sk… GB colleagues in the battle for top spot on the podium for the road race. Cancellara though will also be one of the favourites to take gold in the time trial too. Cancellara has already made at least one trip to recce the route and should easily have the power and stamina to deal with multiple laps of Box HIl in the road racel even if he has to do it without a team as strong as some of his main rivals such as Cavendish.

Reflecting on the incident that scuppered his classics plans for this year Cancellara said:

"A crash is part of cycling, and in a way it's also part of life. I have been working really hard in the last four months to be in the best shape possible for the big races; and I'm confident that I would have performed well. However, I'm glad I only broke my collarbone and that I'm ok for the rest. I'll be back!"

Cancellara made a point of thanking his teammates, cycling fans, the medical staff who treated him, and his wife Stephanie who is expecting the couple's second child.

"The amount of messages wishing me a speedy recovery is really nice. I also had a lot of contact with the team members that are still in Belgium. I told them that they should keep their heads up and be ready for a good battle on the cobblestones on Sunday."
Talking about the support he receives from his wife he said:

"A bike rider needs the unconditional support of his family to perform well. Stefanie knows this and she fully supports my career. Now that we are expecting a second baby, I'm even more motivated to train hard and aim high for the Olympics."

Before Cancellara spoke, RadioShack Nissan Trek team doctor Andreas Gösele explained the treatment so far given to the injured rider and what the next steps would be:

"My colleague, doctor Farkas, used a clavicle pin (picture below) to put the bone together. It's a procedure where we insert a pin in the clavicle itself, instead of using a plate and a lot of screws to keep the bone together. This procedure is a lot more natural and doesn't affect the strength of the bone once the device is removed. The pin will be removed once the fracture is completely healed, at the very earliest in six weeks time. But this is really a small routine operation."

*No we don't think Spartacus will be jumping on a rowing machine - Radio Nissan Trek are using the word in it's strictest sense to refer to an exercise machine equipped with a power measuring device. Probably

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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6 comments

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stewieatb | 12 years ago
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Hatter - David Millar's repair looks like it's been done with the "Plate and screws" method mentioned in the article. I have no idea if either is actually superior - the idea that pushing a pin through the middle of the bone itself is "more natural" seems ridiculous. I'm more inclined to suspect that the nature of the break determines which rebuild is more suitable.

Avatar
mogrim | 12 years ago
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Quote:

I'm going to rest a couple of days, maybe even a week,

Lucky he's only broken it in four places, he might have had to take more than a whole week off  29

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stealth | 12 years ago
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Damn, he's hard, obviously recovers as hard as he rides. Probably goes against the grain, but if he wins the Olympic road race you know it will have been a great race. Good luck to him!

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TheHatter | 12 years ago
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Interesting way of pinning it - different to David Millar's...
//desmond.yfrog.com/Himg862/scaled.php?tn=0&server=862&filename=o70sa.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640)

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Tony Farrelly | 12 years ago
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Hah! Thanks Gkam84! Just put some nice x-ray shots in the story too

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Gkam84 | 12 years ago
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Here's an xray pic taken from Johan Bruyneel's facebook

https://www.facebook.com/johanbruyneel

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