Jürgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol) has ended the 2012 season as he started it, suffering a fracture. The latest is a busted collarbone incurred in a crash in Binche-Tournai-Binche/Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke. The Belgian, who won last week’s Eurométropole Tour/Circuit Franco-Belge, came down late in the race after being unable to avoid the prostrate body of another fallen rider.
He was taken to the specialist Herentals Clinic, where a double fracture to his collarbone was identified, and he will be operated on this evening.
“Finish my season as I started it, in the hospital…” he wrote on his Twitter feed, “broken Collarbone. Operation in 1 hour”
Roelandts' 2012 season could hardly have got off to a worse start, as he came down in a huge crash on the opening stage of January’s Tour Down Under, his first race of the year. He suffered a fracture to the sixth cervical vertebra in his neck, and his return to training was complicated by dizzy spells. This saw him miss the entire Classics season, and was unable to resume racing until the small Dutch ZLM Tour race in mid-April.
After riding the Tour of Belgium however, Roelandts won a stage of the Tour of Luxembourg and finished third in the Ster ZLM Tour in June. A solid Tour de France then saw him take seventh place in the Olympic Games road race, with his late-season form seeing him win the first stage of Franco-Belge and holding on to take the race overall.
The former Belgian champion would arguably have been one of the favourites to take victory in Binche, but instead will end his 2012 season earlier than planned.