Cervélo Test Team leader Carlos Sastre has finally recovered from his bad crashes in the Giro d’Italia, and has confirmed today that he no longer is suffering back pains. In fact, it has healed sufficiently for him to be able to fly from Madrid to Brussels this morning and to ride the cobblestones that will feature on stage three.
The constant jarring and bumping imposes a high load on any rider and so doing a reconnaissance of the pavé is a reflection of how well things have healed up.
“The discomfort and pains I was feeling for three weeks after the Giro have gone completely,” the 2008 Tour de France champion said today. “Despite feeling somewhat uncertain now [about form], given that I haven’t had very intense training sessions, I do feel calm as I’m now longer feeling discomfort. That motivates me to keep improving every day and above all to take on this race feeling enthusiastic, which is the most important thing.”
Sastre crashed twice during the Giro and suffered a herniated disk, which gave him repeated back pains and stopped him riding to his full potential. Despite that, he finished eighth overall in the race, and clocked up important racing miles which will stand to him in the Tour.
Earlier this month he appeared to put a question mark over his participation, although the fact that he subsequently decided to do the Tour was an indication that he was on the road to recovery.
"What I do know right now is that, in theory, I have time to recover to ride in the Tour, but I don't want to obsess about participating in it," he said on June 9th.
"I don't plan to go if I'm going to feel burdened from day one. If I do end up competing in the race, it will be because I'm fully recovered."
With that goal accomplished, he now moves on to a bigger one; chasing a high overall placing in what will be one of his final Tours.
Today’s target is to learn more about what could be one of the most disruptive and dangerous stages in this year’s Tour.
“We are going to do a recky of the most important initial stages of the Tour, and more specifically, the cobblestoned areas of the Paris-Roubaix stage”, he stated before boarding his flight.
Providing he gets through this tough third stage without losing serious time, Sastre should be a factor in the race. The Spaniard will have big Norwegian Thor Hushovd, this year's second place finisher in Paris-Roubaix, to lead him through the difficult stage. The Cervelo rider tends to get stronger as Grand Tours go on, and going into the race under-trained should give him reserves that some of the other riders will lack.
He might suffer in the first ten days, but watch out for Sastre to perform strongly in the second half of what will be his tenth consecutive Tour de France.