By Susan Westemeyer Marcus Burghardt missed most of the 2006 season with a knee injury, which...
Marcus Burghardt is dealing with another knee injury. (Image credit: AFP)
By Susan Westemeyer
Marcus Burghardt missed most of the 2006 season with a knee injury, which resulted in surgery, and he came back in 2007 to emerge as T-Mobile Team's star in the Spring Classics, winning Gent-Wevelgem. Now, with the newly named Team High Road, he is once again recovering from a knee injury, suffered in a training accident.
While at an unofficial team training camp on Mallorca last week, the chain slipped off the chain ring at full speed and he rammed his right knee into the handlebars. After being checked out a local hospital, he flew back to the mainland, where he got the complete diagnosis.
High Road spokesman Stefan Wagner told Cyclingnews, "he feels better but his injury is still aching and he can't ride his bike at the moment. It will take approximately three weeks in total until everything is 100% okay again."
"I bruised the quadriceps tendon and have a light haemorrhage on the bone," he announced on his website, marcus-burghardt.blog.ch. "I will have to cut down on training for at least 10 days. After talking to our team doctor, I will do a lot of work in the water, so that I don't strain the knee too much. Plus I will have daily physiotherapy."
"It's too bad, because I was doing so well in training. That sets me back," the 24 year-old said. "But as you know, I won't give up, especially not because of this injury. Santa Claus doesn't need to bring me any motivation as a present; I have enough of that already."
