Having crashed during yesterday’s final stage of the Tour of Belgium, suffering fractures to his left clavicle and the radius of his left wrist, Italian rider Filippo Pozzato has been successfully operated on in Brescia in Italy.
“This morning, Filippo Pozzato was subjected by Professor Terragnoli of the "Poliambulatorio di Brescia" to a surgical intervention directed to reduce the left clavicle´s compound fracture, as happened yesterday during the "Tour of Belgium"´s last stage,” said his Katusha team today. “The operation succeeded perfectly.”
It added that no pinning was done to the fracture in his wrist, with doctors deciding instead to put the joint in plaster.
Pozzato has been advised that he will be able to return to cycling in approximately 20 day’s time. At that point he will be able to gradually resume training; a date for his return to competition has not been indicated.
The Italian was not scheduled to ride the Tour de France. He will however regret that he will not be able to ride the Italian national championships, which he won in 2009.
He was passed over for selection for the Giro d’Italia. He’ll most likely hope to ride the Vuelta a España in order to prepare for the world road race championships, but the likelihood that he will leave the team may mean that Katusha selects other riders for that race.
The new UCI point system effectively encourages teams to give point-scoring opportunities to riders who will remain as part of their squad the following season.