Like a kid on a bike for the first time, or a baby making its first steps – that’s how Sergio Henao (Sky) describes the feeling of returning to cycling at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali in March this year. Over four months later, on the queen stage of the Tour de Pologne, the Colombian claimed his first win since his annus horribilis of 2014 – a victory that was met not so much by youthful exuberance as the rather more mature feeling of closure, of relief at being able to consign the trials of the previous year and the accompanying self-doubt definitively to the past.
Henao was suspended by Team Sky early in 2014 after irregularities were noted in his blood values and he spent months undergoing independent testing to help build a picture of how altitude natives respond when switching between prolonged periods at sea level and altitude. He was cleared to return to racing but not without a knock to his reputation and not without a three-month period away from competition.
The 27-year-old made his return at the Tour de Suisse but then came another, more crushing blow. Out for a reconnaissance ride of the time trial stage, he collided with a car and was left with a fractured kneecap. It was an injury that in the end kept him out of action for nearly a year but it was one that threw his whole career into jeopardy.
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“The reality was that there was a possibility I wouldn’t be able to return to cycling,” Henao said as he sat down with Cyclingnews in a hotel in Bukowina Tatrzanska, Poland, after his stage win.
“When you’re going through that rehabilitation process, a lot of things go through your head; how will the legs be when will I return? Will I ever get back to the same level as before? There were times when I wondered if it was worth returning to cycling and if I returned then would I return to winning, to being up there in races.”
Henao draws comparisons between the two unfortunate episodes in that they both forced a split from cycling, which he found extremely difficult, given his enjoyment of all aspects of his profession. However, while the nucleus may be the same, the two were different in nature and if anything the issue with the blood values had an even more paralysing effect.
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