Tour de France stage 13 ITT — Photo: © CorVos / Team Giant-Alpecin

Tom Dumoulin back on the bike just four days after breaking his arm (VIDEO)

Jul 26, 2016

Following on from his crash on Stage 19 of the Tour de France, Tom Dunoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) has posted a video showing he’s back in training to prepare for the Rio Olympics.

The Dutchman was forced to abandon the Tour after crashing out with a fractured radius and it appeared doubtful that he would be able to line up in the time-trial in Rio on August 10 where he would have been one of the favourites.

However, his video and an update from his team indicate that his recovery is going well. His team announced that following on from his arrival back home in the Netherlands on Saturday, he went for further check-ups, which have shown that he is healing well and that surgery will not be necessary.

With the recovery heading in the right direction, this Saturday Dumoulin will be able to join up with the Dutch team to travel to Rio, Brazil. Once there, the progress will be closely monitored by the medical staff and the decision to compete in both the road race and time trial events will be made.

Team physician Anko Boelens explained: “The healing is progressing really well. As known, Tom has a distal radius fracture, which is a clean fracture, not in the joint and without any dislocation. He has a custom brace to mobilize the fracture for a proper recovery.

“We hope the progress continues in this way in the coming weeks to be ready in time for both races and to race pain-free, without his brace.”

Dumoulin said: “It’s was a huge disappointment to drop out of the Tour. After the crash I directly knew something was wrong, Rio was in danger. The first x-rays confirmed my feeling. I had additional examinations at the hospital which confirmed that the fracture was a clean one.”

“The belief that Rio was still possible started to become stronger yesterday after I went to fit my brace and I carefully restarted my training with an easy test ride. It went well and I am just really happy to be able to ride the bike again so soon.”

“The preparation went a little bit different than planned. Instead of recovering from a complete Tour and having a relaxed time at home doing the last training before going to Brazil, I am now going for check-ups to the hospital and fitting braces. However I have a good medical support with now almost two weeks to go, the brace and special exercises we’ll go for it.”