If you wanted to be literal about it, you could say the whole of Bernhard Eisel's 2018 season - and perhaps his future career - has centred on a hole, roughly half a centimetre in diameter, on the left side of his head.
Still visible as a scar, it was where the surgeon's drill went in this spring to treat Eisel's subdural haematoma, a condition caused when the Dimension Data veteran crashed during Tirreno-Adriatico in March. The condition is described by doctors as a "slow accumulation of blood beneath the protective layer around the brain" which clotted and put pressure on his brain. If acute, these haematomas can be life-threatening.
Given the extreme delicacy and dangers of the injury, there was no real time frame placed on how long it would take for Eisel to recover. Indeed, the whole question of Eisel's return to racing, first in the GP Pino Cerami and the RideLondon Surrey Classic - where he abandoned - and now in the Tour de Pologne, has been anything but certain. As he puts it to Cyclingnews, "In the last five months, I 'retired' three times."
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As he reflects mid-way through the Polish race, if this accident ultimately means retirement, at least there is now a good chance he can do so as he wants, on his own terms. Unsurprisingly for a racer who has always played a central 'road captain' role in all of the teams he's been in, as well as twice serving on the UCI Athletes Commission, Eisel is determined not just to make up the numbers should he ride on.
"I'm doing well, yesterday [stage 2] I had a fever after the stage and I wasn't sure if it was food poisoning or related to my head so I'm taking it cautiously," he says.
"Here, the weather is nice, I enjoy it, so let's see. And it's good to back on the bike, racing. I was training last week in Austria with Cav [teammate Mark Cavendish] to help get him back on line, and myself, too, so that was good.
Finding his feet
The future
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/a-hole-in-the-head-bernhard-eisel-and-the-long-fight-back
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