Jorge Lorenzo has sprained his left shoulder in a training accident. The four-time world champion was training on a minibike with some other riders, when he fell heavily on his left shoulder.
The pain was severe enough for him to travel to a medical center in Barcelona, where he was diagnosed with grade 1 sprain of his left shoulder.
Grade 1 sprains are the lowest level injury, a mild sprain. Sources speaking to both Motocuatro and GPOne.com classified the injury as “not serious, nothing to worry about.”
Lorenzo is already underway to Japan, and intends to race at Motegi, the first of three back-to-back flyaway races. How much the injury will hamper him remains to be seen, but given the mild nature of the injury, it should not trouble him too much.
Motegi does have a lot of heavy braking, but it is mostly for right-hand corners. From there, the circus heads to Phillip Island, which is a left-hand circuit, but which does not feature much heavy braking. Then to Sepang, which is a mixture of braking for both left and right-handers.
It is worth noting that Andrea Iannone suffered a much more serious injury the week before the Aragon round of MotoGP. The factory Ducati rider dislocated his already weak shoulder, and had to have the joint put back into place in a local hospital.
Iannone went on to finish a highly commendable fourth, much where you would have expected him to finish without the injury.
This is also not the first time that Lorenzo has suffered a shoulder injury and gone on to race. The 2013 race at Assen is one of the Movistar Yamaha rider’s most memorable races, Lorenzo having broken his collarbone in a big and very fast highside during FP2 on Thursday.
That night, he was flown to Barcelona for surgery to plate the collarbone, returning the following evening. After a medical inspection on Saturday morning, Lorenzo went on to finish a brave race in fifth position, after starting from twelfth on the grid.
Jorge Lorenzo is the second rider to injure himself ahead of Motegi. Last week, Marc Marquez fell while riding his mountain bike, and broke a metacarpal bone in his left hand.
Source: Motocuatro & GPOne.com; Photo: © 2015 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.net – All Rights Reserved
This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.
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