{"id":113216,"date":"2025-09-02T02:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113216\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T02:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:32:08","slug":"i-was-so-mentally-broken-vuelta-a-espana-leader-torstein-traeen-opens-up-about-deep-struggles-with-concussion-on-first-rest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113216\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I was so mentally broken’ \u2013 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a leader Torstein Tr\u00e6en opens up about deep struggles with concussion on first rest day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> race leader Torstein Tr\u00e6en<\/a> (Bahrain Victorious) has had a career filled with comebacks and responding to adversity, be that from his cancer diagnosis in 2022<\/a> \u2013 which was discovered thanks to a doping test \u2013 or his latest extended period off the bike due to a concussion in March of this year.<\/p>\n

His resilience has been paramount on the road to wearing the red jersey at the ongoing Vuelta<\/a>, best shown in how he rode the entirety of his first Grand Tour with a broken elbow, just a year after doctors discovered he had testicular cancer, and he was cleared to ride again after recovering from surgery.<\/p>\n

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Tr\u00e6en opened up about how mentally tough his various issues have been in recent years, speaking to the media on the race’s first rest day, with the concussion driving him to extreme thoughts and leaving him contemplating what lay ahead in his future.<\/p>\n

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His mentality is remarkable to say the least, but even as resilient as someone like cancer survivor Tr\u00e6en is, the time alone and internal struggle of not knowing when or whether you will recover presented by a brain injury led the Norwegian to a dark place.<\/p>\n

“When I found out it was cancer, it was obviously hard, but it was mentally hard \u2013 not like physically hard,” Tr\u00e6en told Cyclingnews, as he fielded questions from the team hotel in Calahorra. “You can’t really do anything, I learned about it, you just have to basically just go with the flow.<\/p>\n

“When I broke my elbow [in January 2024], it was also five weeks of the bike, and I still had a bit of the same feeling like when I had cancer \u2013 you didn’t really know when it was going to get good, but hopefully it will, and everything will be fine.<\/p>\n

“Then, when I had a concussion, I was so mentally broken, because I didn’t feel like it would go well. I talked to the doctor and he said, ‘Normally it should be two weeks’, and then after two weeks, I was lying and watching the ceiling.<\/p>\n

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“I basically called him and said, ‘I’m ready to jump off the balcony\u2026 but it’s not high enough, so it won’t make any difference’.”<\/p>\n

Tr\u00e6en’s comments were serious, of course, though said with a deadpan tone on the severity of the subject, with several other riders talking of similarly serious struggles with concussion in recent seasons, such as Quinn Simmons<\/a> and Taco van der Hoorn. Knowing that things had gone too far, Tr\u00e6en sought help in his home country and went to see specialists to find out exactly what was going on, which ended up in him finally getting back on track and racing at Eschborn-Frankfurt<\/a> on May 5.<\/p>\n

“I was really unsure if I ever would feel good again. Then I was quite lucky, I went to the Olympic centre in Norway, and then they sent me to an ear specialist. When everything was sorted, I figured out it was not only a concussion, and then everything again felt pretty normal.”<\/p>\n

Leading the Vuelta into the second week<\/p>\n

When what Tr\u00e6en has endured in just the past three years is laid out as simply as that, it’s no surprise that he’s been able to defend the maillot rojo after earning a stint in it on stage 6<\/a>, having finished second out of the breakaway and overtaken Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> (Visma-Lease a Bike).<\/p>\n

This is the first time in his career he’s led any stage race, let alone a Grand Tour, and he’s relishing the days he’s had in red, knowing that Vingegaard will likely retake red in the coming days. He could lose it on Tuesday, with another uphill finale to El Ferial Larra Belagua, but isn’t stressed by any means.<\/p>\n

“I’m just looking a bit day by day, and then we just have to see, you know, like I was not expecting Jonas to go that early yesterday, for example,” admitted Tr\u00e6en. “So if he does this tomorrow, also, I don’t think 37 seconds is enough to keep up with him.<\/p>\n

“It’s the first time I’m leading a stage race, so it’s pretty fun just running around and enjoying red. The pressure and attention are OK to be honest, because you know that you will not have it for 21 days, then you can enjoy it a bit more than maybe Jonas does, for example.”<\/p>\n

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\"Team\n<\/p>\n

Tr\u00e6en has been enjoying his time in red (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

This Vuelta is far and away Tr\u00e6en’s best Grand Tour performance of the four he’s started, with his first at the Tour de France<\/a> in 2023 becoming 21 days of struggle due to fracturing his elbow on the first stage, his second at the Giro d’Italia ending in a DNF after four days and his most recent, at last year’s Vuelta, seeing a best stage placing of 34th across the three weeks.<\/p>\n

He knew his form was strong, having bounced back after his concussion recovery, but this first week in Italy and Spain has all been a bonus. It’s fair to say the Norwegian is just going to take it as it comes, though a top 10 on GC does certainly look doable now.<\/p>\n

“Already after the Dauphin\u00e9, I was in pretty good shape, and then I went to altitude again and I realised my shape was coming along really well,” he added. “So it’s going where I knew it was going, which is, in general, pretty great now.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t really think about being in red after the first week of Vuelta. It was obviously not an easy season this year with the concussion and so, obviously, I put quite a lot of work into getting back fit again. Also, maybe I’m a bit mentally fresher still at this point in the season, because I didn’t do much racing for the start.”<\/p>\n

That being said, and despite all of Tr\u00e6en’s early success and great signs of top shape in the opening nine stages, he is still without a contract for the moment, confirming that it will be something for his agent to mostly figure out, while he concentrates on the Vuelta.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, I’m not really focusing on the contract yet,” said Tr\u00e6en. “I think my agent will handle everything. We haven’t signed anything yet, but yeah, it will probably happen at one point, and until then, I’ll just focus on riding my bike.”<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our 2025 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a coverage. Our team of journalists are on the ground from the Italian Gran Partida through to Madrid, bringing you breaking news, analysis, and more, from every stage of the Grand Tour as it happens. Find out more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a race leader Torstein Tr\u00e6en (Bahrain Victorious) has had a career filled with comebacks and responding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-113216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}