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Andre Greipel undergoes surgery to repair collarbone

  • Ron 

On Sunday evening, André Greipel successfully underwent surgery to repair his left collarbone that was broken in a crash in Saturday’s Milan – San Remo. The unfortunate German crashed on the descent of the Poggio and is out for the rest of the spring.

During the surgery – performed by doctor Toon Claes in Herentals – the complex fracture was fixed with a plate and ten screws.

André Greipel: “Doctor Claes said it was a difficult, but successful operation. The collarbone was broken into different pieces. I already could go home this morning. The upcoming week I need to leave the bike aside and afterwards, depending on the amount of pain I have, I can start riding on the rollers. The next weeks I can’t ride any races, so I try to be patient and not to rush anything.”

“I immediately felt my collarbone was broken. Scans in the hospital of Nice Saturday night confirmed that. As a rider you always hope for a miracle, so you can start in the Classics, but that hope disappeared quickly. The next weeks will be all about rest and rehabilitation and I will come and cheer for the team in one of the races. Unfortunately this is also part of a cyclist’s life.”

“I’m over the first disappointment, but it’s true that I had never climbed Cipressa and Poggio so smoothly. This time it wasn’t the ascent of the Poggio that eliminated me, but the descent. Despite a crash in the first feed zone and a pursuit on Turchino, I felt very good. Between Cipressa and Poggio we were still riding on the first rows of the bunch with five teammates to turn up the Poggio in a perfect position and after the top I still had Jasper De Buyst and Jens Debusschere with me.”

“Of course Nibali’s jump was a huge effort. Hats off to him for making it to the finish with such a headwind! But I would have loved to sprint on the Via Roma. The race was perfect for sprinters, the sun had come out in the last two hours of the race and I had never been in such a good condition for the Classics. But it wasn’t meant to be.”

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