Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma Lotto)(Image credit: www.ispaphoto.com)
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) after his stage win(Image credit: Sirotti)
Jurgen Van Den Broeck and David Zabriskie crashed out on stage 9(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) has returned to full training as he aims to make amends for his curtailed Tour de France with a strong showing at the Vuelta a España.
The Belgian was forced to abandon the Tour when he suffered a fractured shoulder blade, two fractured ribs and a collapsed lung in a crash on stage nine.
Following x-rays at hospital in Herentals on Tuesday, Van Den Broeck received the all-clear to step up his training.
“The doctor had never seen such a quick recovery,” Van Den Broeck said, quoted by Sporza. “The shoulder and broken ribs have healed perfectly and even my partially collapsed lung is in the past.”
An additional benefit of Van Den Broeck’s rapid recovery is that doctors have given him the green light to fly again. The climber had initially planned to drive to Italy for a spell of pre-Vuelta altitude training, but he is now considering other sites for a key block of training.
“I’ve change my original plans,” he said. “Because I wasn’t allowed to fly, I was going to drive down to Livigno for ten days. But it turns out the weather isn’t too brilliant there. So I’m looking to a new destination. Sierra Nevada is one of the possibilities.”
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