Ben Healy’s Ardennes campaign is over before it even began, darn it. It isn’t even undone not by a fresh crash, but by something that lingered.
The Irish star hit the deck during a recon ride ahead of the opening time trial at Itzulia Basque Country. At the time, it didn’t look decisive. The pain eased, he got the green light from the team doctors, and he carried on racing. Through the week, it was manageable,stiff, sure, but improving.
Only, it wasn’t.
Back home, the discomfort came back sharper. An MRI followed, and with it, some crappy news. Healy had a small, non-displaced fracture in the sacrum. No surgery required, but no racing either. Not now.
“I am gutted,” Healy said. “I thought I was getting better during the race… it wasn’t really until I got home that it started to give me some grief.”
That delay, between impact and diagnosis, cost him a block of racing he’d been building toward since winter. The Ardennes classics were a clear target. And the punchy races suit him–Healy loves to animate–and he wins too, doncha know.
What’s up for Healy?
The timeline isn’t catastrophic. There’s plenty of racing left.
A return to the bike could come within a couple of weeks, with a cautious build back toward summer. The focus shifts quickly to what’s still possible: racing again before the Tour de France, and arriving there in shape.
For now, though, it’s a waiting game. Not dramatic, not headline-grabbing in the usual sense, just one of those injuries that quietly changes a rider’s spring.
Thankfully, the season is long. Hopefully we’ll see that familiar Healy head tilt in full suffering mode again soon
Either way, Amstel Gold Race goes down Sunday with heaps of Canucks in both the men’s and women’s race.
You can watch it all on Flobikes.com. And by golly, the gang at Canadian Cycling Magazine will be writing up both races, too.
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