Team Sky neo-pro crashed out during Strade Bianche
Neo-pro Peter Kennaugh is wrapped up against the cold. (Image credit: Simon Plackett/dpphotographic.net)
Peter Kennaugh (Team Sky) crashed out of the Strade Bianche race on Saturday, fracturing his collarbone but his prospects of making a quick return to racing appear good with the news that the fracture is a simple break.
A Sky spokesperson confirmed to Cyclingnews that Kennaugh doesn’t need surgery and he will return to the Isle of Man to recover. The spokesperson added that as neo-pro the team will give him plenty of time to recover and have not set a time for him to return.
Like his Team Sky team-mate Kurt-Asle Arvesen, who suffered the same injury at last month's Tour of Qatar, the 20-year old neo-pro will resume training as soon as possible. Kennaugh's next scheduled race is the Tour of Catalunya, starting on 22 March. He will be ruled out of that but a comeback sometime in April is not impossible, given that Arvesen will return to racing on Wednesday, just over four weeks after his crash in Qatar.
Kennaugh crashed on one of the white dirt roads that give the Strade Bianche its name and its unique appeal. It was on a descent, with 70km of the race remaining, that the Isle of Man rider took a tumble, with his left collarbone taking the brunt of the impact.
"He's a strong little guy and I'm sure he'll be back soon," said Team Sky's sports director, Marcus Ljungqvist, after the race. "That's how it goes. It's bad news for Peter but, as Kurt has shown, you can come back quickly from an injury like this, and Peter will, I'm sure."
Ljungqvist was satisfied with Team Sky's showing, which continued the new squad's consistent run in the first big one-day races of the new season. After Juan Antonio Flecha's victory in the previous weekend's Het Nieuwsblad and Ian Stannard's third in the following day's Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Thomas Lofkvist placed second in Siena on Saturday, with Flecha, who also featured in the day's decisive break, also among the front-runners in eighth.
“It was both good and bad,” said Ljungqvist. “The guys were strong and showed that they deserve to be up there. Thomas was good, and went close to doing the double [having won in 2009], and the team rode well overall. Thomas and Flecha were our protected riders, and they were both there in the finale with the best guys. You need a bit of luck to win, and maybe we didn't have that at the end, but we can be satisfied."
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Richard Moore is a freelance journalist and author. His first book, In Search of Robert Millar (HarperSport), won Best Biography at the 2008 British Sports Book Awards. His second book, Heroes, Villains & Velodromes (HarperSport), was long-listed for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
He writes on sport, specialising in cycling, and is a regular contributor to Cyclingnews, the Guardian, skyports.com, the Scotsman and Procycling magazine.
He is also a former racing cyclist who represented Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the 1998 Tour de Langkawi
His next book, Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France, will be published by Yellow Jersey in May 2011.
Another book, Sky’s the Limit: British Cycling’s Quest to Conquer the Tour de France, will also be published by HarperSport in June 2011.
