Alex Dowsett (Team Sky) has returned to serious training and could be on the start line at next week’s Tour of Norway.
The British national time trial champion was injured in a crash at Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen in March in which he broke his elbow, and his recovery was slowed by infection.
Dowsett got back on his bike last week and has already completed several long rides as well as competing in club time trials.
“The plate came out last Tuesday, they let me out of hospital last Thursday evening, and I did five hours Saturday, five hours Sunday, rest day Monday, six hours Tuesday, so I’ve thrown myself back into it,” he told RCUK.
“It’s been hard. This morning [Wednesday] I did three hours and I was really suffering.
“It’s just nice to be back. I’m sure I’m overcooking it a bit early on, but I’ll just take an extra rest day somewhere down the line, and I’ll be alright,” he said.
Dowsett said he is the Team Sky reserve for the Tour of Norway, the Tour of Luxembourg, and Bayern-Rundfahrt.
“Swifty [Ben Swift] is injured but I think he’ll be back pretty soon, so I think one of us will be doing Luxembourg and one of us will be doing Norway. It’s looking like I might do Norway but I don’t know if it’s a bit soon for me. I’m finding out from doctors what they think is best. I don’t want to have a silly little crash and do a lot more damage,” he said.
Dowsett still has hopes of making Team GB’s final five-man line-up for the Olympic road race.
“I’m still in that group of riders going for those five places. My chances have dropped. I know I can be fit enough on the day. I know my ‘fit enough’ is good enough, but it’s the races I haven’t done to prove myself worthy of a place. I was meant to be in Romandy. I could have been the reserve pulled in for Swifty at the Giro.
“I can only do what I can do between now and then. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. I want to get to that start line knowing I couldn’t have done anymore. The cards have been dealt and I’ve just got to make the best of it,” he said.
Dowsett is riding his way back to race sharpness by competing in time trials with his club, the Maldon and District. He described his enforced time off the bike as “pretty rough” and said he had coped by taking ‘one day at a time’ and detaching himself from cycling.
His return to full training has coincided with the Giro d’Italia. Dowsett paid glowing tribute to former Livestrong teammate, Taylor Phinney, who won the opening stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia and led the race for three days, surviving a heavy crash on stage three that also brought down Mark Cavendish.
“That boy likes drama!” Dowsett joked.
“At L’Avenir, I took the yellow jersey because he managed to throw himself on the floor while he was leading and I was running second. I sent him a text after stage two [of the Giro] saying, ‘You can’t just have a nice normal day in the leader’s jersey can you?’”
Dowsett said he was “over the moon” to see Phinney fulfill his potential.
“Such massive things were expected of him. He’s had a hard job moving into the pro ranks. He’s taken a bit of time, settled in, and now he’s showing us all what he’s really capable of, which is when he’s on form, he’s unbeatable. He’s on another planet,” he said.
