<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo weeks ago we still saw things positively, but the old injury has again caused problems during training,\u201d said Mettepenningen. \u201cThe positive atmosphere of the past weeks suddenly turned into a negative one. He again experiences issues with the blood flow in his left leg. It is not optimal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will conduct new tests this week and seek a second opinion from a specialist at the university hospital in Ghent, but it is already clear that participation on November 11 is not feasible,\u201d Mettepenningen continued. \u201cWe must now hope for later in the season, in the best case, but we have to wait for the tests. I think we should not delude ourselves. Today, we are rather pessimistic than optimistic: we should not think about a quick return.\u201d<\/p>\n
A difficult reality for the rider and the team<\/p>\n
Mettepenningen acknowledged that the situation leaves the team facing uncertainty about Iserbyt\u2019s future participation. When asked if he fears there may be no solution to the problem, he replied: \u201cI think you can hear my tone: it is not a cheerful tone. Then you know it is not good news. I do not want to dramatize it yet, but we have to be realistic. Niel will not happen, but we need to see what is possible in the medium term. However, we will not see Iserbyt in the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The setback also has a big psychological impact on the rider, who has spent most of the year fighting to return to his best form.<\/p>\n
\u201cMentally, this is very tough for Eli, a sportsman through and through, who sees his profession, passion and life taken away although he did everything to return as soon as possible,\u201d Mettepenningen said. \u201cThe surgeries were not really successful and now he is again held back by his injury. It is very hard for him as a person. The most important thing now is to recover, find the right level again, and only then return to racing,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cTwo weeks ago we still saw things positively, but the old injury has again caused problems during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-241200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}