Andrea Dovizioso was taken to hospital this weekend with what was suspected to be a broken left collarbone, after crashing during a regional motocross race in Faenza, Italy.
On Sunday evening, Dovizioso underwent surgery at the Policlinico di Modena, and he will be able to start physiotherapy immediately. This means Dovizioso should be ready for the first 2020 MotoGP race, which is July 19th at Jerez.
Dani Pedrosa’s career as test rider for KTM has gotten off to an unlucky start. The Spaniard has suffered another broken collarbone, and will require surgery and a long recovery process before he can start testing again.
Pedrosa’s injury is a legacy of the many previous times he has broken his collarbone. The right collarbone is severely weakened after being broken twice before, and having surgery to fit plates.
That has left him with a so-called sclerotic lesion on the collarbone, which means that bone growth in the collarbone is very slow. That, and a lack of blood flow to the bone, has left him with osteoporosis, and a weakened collarbone.
More bad news from the World Superbike paddock, as Chaz Davies joins Leon Camier in the list of riders who have injured themselves during the two-month summer break
Davies broke the collarbone in his right shoulder during a training incident. As such, Davies will miss the Race of Champions at World Ducati Week 2018, but he should be ready for racing action when WorldSBK convenes in Portugal for the official WorldSBK test in August, and later in September for the Portuguese round.
It is not clear at this time if Davies will undergo surgery to plate the collarbone fracture, or if he will let the fracture mend on its own. Either way, the injury should not prevent the factory Ducati rider from performing his WorldSBK duties.
Hector Barbera has broken his left collarbone in a training accident, the Avintia Ducati team announced via its Instagram account. The 30-year-old Spaniard was training with a 600cc sport bike at the Valencia circuit when he crashed, fracturing his collarbone.
Barbera is due to undergo surgery at the Dexeus Institute in Barcelona on Thursday, where Dr. Mir will put a plate on his collarbone to correct the problem.
Barbera’s crash puts his participation in the next test at Qatar in doubt. The test is due to kick off on March 10th at the Losail circuit, and run from March 10th to 12th.
Dani Pedrosa has suffered more bad luck at Motegi. For the second time in his career, he has crashed there and broken a collarbone.
The Repsol Honda rider suffered a huge highside at the end of the afternoon FP2 session, being flung high into the air at Turn 11. The Spaniard immediately got up holding his collarbone, and was taken on the back of a scooter to the medical center. There, he was diagnosed with a fractured right collarbone.
Pedrosa is to fly back immediately to Spain, where he will undergo surgery to fix the collarbone. Officially, the Repsol Honda team have only ruled him out of Sunday’s race at Motegi.
However, it is extremely unlikely that the Spaniard will return before Valencia. Dr Xavier Mir, one of the official doctors for MotoGP, told Spanish reporters he did not expect to see Pedrosa back until the final race of the season.
If you talk to long-time motorcyclists, they either have a story or two about the collarbone(s) they have broken, or they remark about how lucky they are not to have broken one…yet. This is because the clavicle is a common bone to break during our two-wheeled endeavors – a right of passage, perhaps.
If you follow me on social media, you probably already know that I have gained entry into this esteemed club last week, breaking my collarbone all of ten feet into Switzerland, while riding on a BMW R1200RS (review to come).
For those that don’t follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (see what I did there?), this would explain why the chronicling of my European tour suddenly stopped without reason. Well…that and Italy barely qualifies as a first-world country when it comes to telecommunications.
With testing now over, Jack Miller has joined the ranks of riders undergoing surgery in the off season. Flying back from Sepang to Barcelona, Miller had an operation to remove four loose screws from his right collarbone, the aftermath of an old injury sustained at Indianapolis in 2013.
That injury was fixed with a plate, but preseason crashes on the KTM Moto3 bike caused a number of complications for the Australian.
With testing completely, Miller now has time to have the remaining screws removed from his shoulder, and allow it to heal. Miller will be unable to train for five days while the scar heals, but will be able to resume his training program after that.
The composition of the MotoGP grid at Laguna Seca remains uncertain at the moment, as injuries sustained at the Sachsenring continue to take their toll. On Tuesday, Andrea Iannone announced that he would not be fit enough to race at Laguna Seca, after a CT scan showed up problems with the shoulder he hurt at the Sachsenring.
Iannone had a massive crash at Turn 1, as he accidentally selected the pit lane mapping while braking for the corner, locking up the rear wheel and being thrown from the bike. The Italian dislocated his right shoulder in the crash, and was forced to withdraw from the race in Germany.
An examination in Italy revealed a large amount of fluid in the joint, making it impossible for him to race in the US GP, the Italian press service ANSA is reporting.
After Jorge Lorenzo’s heroic ride at Assen, where he’d broken his left collarbone only two days before, the German GP had many of us asking “how much is too much?” in terms of riding with injuries.
Two weeks after Lorenzo had risked, perhaps not ‘everything’ but certainly ‘a lot,’ to limit his injury’s effect on the championship standings (he finished 5th, one place behind a struggling Dani Pedrosa), the topic came up in Thursday’s Press Conference at the German GP. Cal Crutchlow remarked that Lorenzo’s decision at Assen had raised the bar for all riders facing the question: Should I race with this injury?
Ironically, or perhaps not, Crutchlow himself had raised this bar at Silverstone last season when he slipped past the medical exam process to turn in his own amazing ride through the pack with a broken ankle. He pointed out that now more riders would be using Lorenzo’s Assen ride as a precedent: if he was allowed to ride at Assen, why can’t I?
Lorenzo didn’t like the sound of that, saying other riders should not use him as an example and instead listen to their own bodies to determine if they should sit out or compete while injured.
All weekend I heard different responses to the situation, from respect for athletes who push through pain, to scorn for the willingness to put others at risk by competing at well below 100% fitness.
One paddock insider expressed the opinion that riding a MotoGP bike is difficult enough at full fitness–any physical or mental weakness is a liability that increases the risk of crashing, and thus increases the chances of a crash involving other riders.
Two days, two big highsides, and two championship contenders down and out. Friday and Saturday at the Sachsenring saw both Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa have massive crashes, and forced to withdraw from the race in Germany.
Jorge Lorenzo bent the titanium plate holding together the collarbone which he broke at Assen, while Dani Pedrosa suffered an imcomplete fracture of his collarbone, and had problems with blood pressure and dizziness.
Though both Pedrosa and Lorenzo were ruled out of the Sachsenring race, there was much speculation about whether either of the two would be racing at Laguna Seca next weekend.
How quickly things change. Yesterday, it looked like Jorge Lorenzo had handed the 2013 MotoGP championship to Dani Pedrosa on a plate, by crashing unnecessarily at Turn 10, and bending the titanium plate he had fitted to his collarbone after breaking it at Assen.
Today, Pedrosa did his best to level the playing field again, by pushing a little too hard on a cold tire at Turn 1, and being catapulted out of the saddle in a cold tire, closed throttle highside. He flew a long way, and hit the ground hard, coming up rubbing his collarbone much as Jorge Lorenzo had done.
He was forced to miss qualifying, and for most of the afternoon, it looked like he too could be forced to miss the Sachsenring race, and possibly also Laguna Seca.
At the end of the afternoon, the medical intervention team – a group of experienced Spanish emergency doctors who spend their free weekends hooning around race tracks in hot-rodded BMW M550d medical cars – gave a press conference to explain Pedrosa’s medical situation, and what had happened that afternoon.
Dr. Charte and Dr. Caceres told the media that Pedrosa had a huge crash, had walked away feeling dizzy, and had been rushed to the medical center. There, he had one X-ray on his collarbone, but just as he was about to have a second X-ray, his blood pressure dropped dramatically. The second X-ray was immediately aborted as the medical staff intervened to stabilize Pedrosa.
He was then flown to a local hospital, where he had a cranial MRI scan and a CT scan of his upper body, which showed that he had sustained no major injuries, apart from a partially fractured collarbone.
A neurological test turned up no signs of concussion, and the drop in blood pressure was probably just due to the force of the impact, a typical symptom of shock. He returned to the track, where he was examined again, and nothing abnormal showed up in that exam.
Will Pedrosa race tomorrow? That will be decided in the morning, firstly by Pedrosa himself, who must decide whether he wants to undergo a medical test, and then by the doctors performing the fairly full medical test, including an extensive neurological exam, aimed at ruling out any signs of concussion or nerve problems.