2010 Giro d'Italia King of the Mountains should be back to full capacity within three months
2010 Giro d'Italia stage and Mountains jersey winner, Matthew Lloyd, has had his 2011 campaign put on hold following a bad crash "involving a tram and motorists" on Friday afternoon, according to SBS.com.au.
The 27 year old was riding through the busy streets of St. Kilda in Melbourne when he crashed. Lloyd admits that it was just an unfortunate accident.
"These things can always happen in the traffic of the most unlikely circumstances. It was unavoidable on anyone's behalf."
Even with his Australia summer season of racing completely gone and a chance at a second Australian national championship included with that, Lloyd managed to crack a joke about the terrible crash he sustained at the 2009 Amstel Gold Race.
"There's damage to two or three parts of the upper part of the spine, which is okay for me, because I think last year, I broke seven of the lower ones, so I'm trying to spread it out a bit."
Jokes aside, the injury to his spine does not look too severe and should hopefully heal itself in time, says the Omega Pharma-Lotto rider.
"The x-rays show [the vertebrae are] a bit buckled and twisted due to the swelling, but generally according to what [the doctors] said, that can slowly repair itself and everything can come back together quite smoothly."
The crash resulted in some other injuries outside of the damage to Lloyd's upper spine. The typical hands forward maneuver when going forward in a crash did not result in the typical broken collarbone, but rather, went to the rotator cuff. Lloyd admits there's some work to be done to get his shoulder back in working order.
"The worst part was putting the hands out in front of you often leads to [broken] collarbones or things like that. This time, the top part of the arm bone that rests in the rotator cuff has been cracked off. They need to screw it back on or else I'll have that syndrome where the arm keeps [dislocating]. The procedure itself is a simple on from a bone structure perspective, but you've just got to hope that all the ligaments and muscles are pretty much intact, so we'll try and keep it that way."
While his Australian summer of racing is out the window, most of his European campaign should still be in place. SBS.com.au notes that doctors are projecting a full recovery within three months, which would be the end of March for Lloyd to be back to 100%. That would be excellent timing for his season's main goal, the Giro d'Italia, where he hopes to go even better than he did in 2010.
"It could be, in a way, some kind of blessing in disguise, because a lot of guys don't get a chance to have forced recovery at this time of year, because they have to start their programs."
First though, Lloyd can look forward to ten days of complete rest, before beginning rehab and lower body exercises. It will be a long season with a lot of opportunities for Lloyd once he's better. The Australian is keeping a good perspective on things as he readies for a lengthy rehabilitation process.
"It does put a dampener on things, but from a seasonal perspective, it could be okay."