Unfortunate news for Saxo Bank's young track crossover standout, Michael Morkov. The Dane has been a major asset to the Saxo Bank classics campaign all spring, but a freak accident yesterday resulted in a possible shoulder fracture, which means he won't be able to take the start for the Hell of the North tomorrow morning in Compiegne.
Saturday morning, the soon to be 26 year old, former track World Champion told the story of his unfortunate spill that will keep him out of l'Enfer du Nord.
"It was a really unlucky crash, and of course, I'm very unhappy right now. I was just going out for a quick spin when I crossed some sewage from our truck, my front wheel just slipped, and I crashed down on my shoulder."
Like any tough professional, Morkov got up and continued on to take part in the team's pre-race reconnaissance ride. Unfortunately, the initial pain from the fall never went away, despite the team's best efforts to fix one of its big motors.
"I did our training ride afterwards, but back at the hotel, I knew something was wrong. I got some treatments, but it didn't help me. We fear, that I have some kind of fracture in my shoulder, so late last night, it was decided that I couldn't ride."
If it is in fact a broken shoulder, even riding the final one hundred kilometers of Paris-Roubaix was a colossal achievement for last year's fourth place overall at the difficult Tour du Limousin.
"I'm of course unhappy, because it has been absolutely fantastic to be part of our classics team, and I was really looking forward to Paris-Roubaix, because it's so special."
Young Australian, David Tanner, will take Morkov's place for tomorrow's murderous slog to Roubaix.
The Saxo Bank team: Baden Cooke, Gustav Larsson, Matteo Tosatto, Kasper Klostergaard, Jonas Aaen, Luke Roberts, David Tanner, and Jaroslaw Marycz.