By this point in the year, Owain Doull was meant to have 12 race days and two WorldTour outings under his belt across a six-week block in the Australian summer. As it is, the 23-year-old finds himself in Abu Dhabi this week only now making his road debut as a fully-fledged professional.
Doull rode for Team Sky as a stagiaire at the end of last season and joined on a full contract for 2017, but on the eve of the Tour Down Under he was rushed to hospital after his appendix burst.
“I was throwing up and stuff for two or three days and I thought it was just a bit of stomach bug, and it died down for a while but then I woke up middle of night with a stabbing pain in my abdomen, and that’s when we knew I needed to go to hospital straight away,” he told Cyclingnews ahead of the opening stage of the Abu Dhabi Tour, where he did indeed make it through the start line.
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“I was lucky. We were close to a really good hospital, and had a really good doctor on the team, so it was diagnosed pretty quickly. Within an hour or so of it rupturing, I was on my way to the hospital and was operated on three or four hours later.”
Having trained hard over the winter to be in good shape in January for Down Under, the Cadel Evans Race, and the Herald Sun Tour – even arriving in Australia two weeks in advance – it was a significant setback.
“In terms of where I was at, it was frustrating. It was taking a few steps back, and I’d worked pretty hard over the winter to be in a good place to start the year so that was a bit of a pain, but I guess better to have it now at the start of the year rather than the end of the year,” said Doull.
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