Orica Scott brought the balloons and the traditional Australian Lamington cakes; the press obliged with their flash cameras, and Estaben Chaves arrived on cue with that infectious smile to toast in his 27th birthday. There may have been the air of a publicity stunt at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide for the Tour Down Under, but few would doubt that when Chaves paused to thank his team and others who have supported his career that the sentiment was nothing but entirely heartfelt and genuine.
After all, Chaves is a rider who came back from the brink - a rider who had his career almost entirely wiped out by a high-impact crash at the Trofeo Laigueglia in 2013.
Until that point, the Bogota-born climber had enjoyed an early promising career peak in 2011 when he won the Tour de L'Avenir, a gateway race for potential Tour de France winners.
ADVERTISEMENT
However, on February 16, 2013, everything changed. On ProCyclingStats, a chiselled 'DNF' stands next to his name for the Trofeo Laigueglia, but those three little letters do nothing to describe the serious condition Chaves found himself in at the time. Among his catastrophic injuries - a compound fracture of his right collarbone, fractures to his skull, right cheekbone, maxillary sinuses and sphenoid bone, a punctured lung, and suspected rib fractures along with multiple contusions. The doctors and Chaves had no idea if he would return to the sport.
"For sure I thought I might have to stop racing. It was hard, it was super hard, actually. Athletes do nothing more than sport. We don't study, we don't work, we just do sport. To think about stopping your career at 22 years old, that's hard. What was there after that? I couldn't move my arm, so how could I work?"
The right arm injury was the most severe, with nerve damage so bad he could not move the limb, let alone feel it. Chaves underwent a 12-hour surgery, with the medical team taking nerves from his right foot and planting them into his arm. It was tenuous if the healing process would even work.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/2jvRHxj
No comments:
Post a Comment