Bone graft needed for hand broken in Tour de France 2012
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World champion Tony Martin could not pull off a second stage win(Image credit: AFP Photo)
Time trial world champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) powers to the finish line in Mont-Saint-Michel(Image credit: AFP)
Time trial world champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) would finish the stage 17 mountain time trial in 27th place, more than three minutes behind Chris Froome(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
The peloton were breathing down his neck for miles, but Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) was only caught 100 metres from the finish line.(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)
Tony Martin will undergo surgery on the hand he broke in last year's Tour de France. Since he will have to wear a cast for three months, the operation has been planned for after the end of the Tour of Beijing the end of October.
The Omega Pharma-QuickStep rider fractured his left hand in the first stage of the 2012 Tour de France, but continued riding through the ninth stage. He finished second in the London Olympics time trial and won the world title in that discipline in Valkenburg.
“A piece of bone will be taken from his pelvis and set into his injured hand between the thumb and wrist,” team doctor Helge Reipenhof told the dpa press agency.
He will then have to put up with “stabilising measures for the hand for about 12 weeks.”
An operation was discussed and dismissed last year. But now it is necessary, Riepenhof said, so that the 28-year-old German “doesn't have arthritis in the hand in ten years.”
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