MRI scan reveals injury after Tour stage winner struggled through a painful Vuelta
Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) has been forced to call an end to his 2013 season after an MRI scan has revealed a minor hip fracture. The 33-year-old Australian crashed during stage three of the Vuelta a España, but had ridden on until the end of today’s 13th stage. The pain had worsened, however, and he was taken to hospital straight after the stage where the injury was detected.
“I’ve been in a quite a bit of pain since my crash on stage three but was hoping it wasn’t too serious so that I could stay in the Vuelta and prepare for the World Championships,” Gerrans explained. “The pain just got worse and worse, and today we decided to have it scanned. That’s when we learned about the fracture.
“I’ve had a feeling something wasn’t right over the last few days,” he continued. “This obviously means that my season is over because an injury like this needs time to heal. I was really aiming to finish the year off with some good results, but with this happening, I need to pack it in for 2013.”
Although he has not been able to match last year’s Milano-Sanremo victory, Gerrans enjoyed one of his best years to date in 2013, taking stage victories in the Santos Tour Down Under, the Volta a Catalunya and the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. He took third place in the Amstel Gold Race for the second time in three years, but the highlight of his season came at the Tour de France, where he won the third stage and took the yellow jersey after Orica-GreenEdge’s victory in the stage 4 team time trial.
“I’m obviously really disappointed, but I have a lot of good memories from one my best seasons to date,” Gerrans added. “I’m sort of lucky that I can still recover fully in time to come back strong next year. This season has been great for me and the team. I look forward to healing up and setting new goals for next year.”