André Greipel Out For Three Months

by Jen See on Jan 22, 2009 11:43 AM EST in News

Gavia André Greipel of Team Columbia will miss up to three months of training as a consequence of injuries suffered in a crash during Thursday's Stage 3 of the Tour Down Under. Greipel collided at high speed with a motor bike. Friday, the 26 year old sprinter will return home to Germany, where he will undergo surgery for a dislocated shoulder. The German sprinter also suffered deep cuts to his right elbow and left knuckles.

According to Greipel, the motorbike simply came out of nowhere. "At the beginning of the race, I was with around 30 riders going fast. Suddenly, where there was nothing, there stood a motorbike. Then, everything went too fast. A head-on collision at almost 60 km/hr," recounted Greipel on his blog. A nearby rider saw him fly through the air. Allan Davis and four other riders also crashed. Davis proved able to finish the stage, and should be able to continue the race.

Team Columbia DS Alan Peiper blamed the heavy crosswinds for the incident. "The race was fast and there were strong crosswinds, so a split opened up in the field," explained Pieper to radsport-news.com. "André fell behind and could not see what was happening in front. Because the race was so fast, no one in the field warned about the danger as is normal," continued Peiper.

On Friday, Greipel returns to Germany for shoulder surgery. Then, 12 weeks of recovery. "This is obviously frustrating, because my form was really good," Griepel admitted. "At the same time, I am also relieved that nothing worse happened," he said. The young sprinter is not looking forward to the long weeks of recovery, which he expects to be "boring," but he hopes to return with the even more strength and motivation.

Sources, André Greipel blog and radsport-news.com.

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Comments

Much longer than he originally thought

He said on CN this morning “I’ll be out 3 weeks.” Um…..yeah.

Bummer for him as his form was good so far.

"I didn't look for him and I didn't see him. If you base your race on another rider, most of the time you lose."

Tom Boonen

by Drew Davis on Jan 22, 2009 11:55 AM EST reply actions

ja

he has 12 weeks on his blog now. ouch.

by Jen See on Jan 22, 2009 12:25 PM EST up reply actions

Why do you keep writing 'ja'? (:

How I hate these kinds of news, let’s hope it’s a worst case estimate the doctors have given him/us.
And when I say worst case I mean the time it would take an ordinary human to recover.

by OctaBech on Jan 22, 2009 1:18 PM EST up reply actions

lol

Too much German reading this am ;-)

Yes, I really hope this is a worst-case, and he can start some training sooner than 12 weeks. That puts him off the bike entirely until April.

by Jen See on Jan 22, 2009 1:20 PM EST up reply actions

Do not worry

it’s only too much German reading when you start wearing your hair in pigtails, drink warm beer and change your name to Helga… gotta run, my favourite Anime is about to air and I haven’t finished my onigiris.

by OctaBech on Jan 22, 2009 1:54 PM EST up reply actions

bahahaha!

No worries then ;-)

by Jen See on Jan 22, 2009 2:03 PM EST up reply actions

Karma

such a biyatch. Columbia had a lot of things go right last year, so here comes the flipside.

CQRanking.com, you complete me.

by Chris Fontecchio on Jan 22, 2009 12:10 PM EST reply actions

And for those of you who were going to choose Andre for your VDS team....

go right ahead.

"I didn't look for him and I didn't see him. If you base your race on another rider, most of the time you lose."

Tom Boonen

by Drew Davis on Jan 22, 2009 12:39 PM EST reply actions

Hey, he'll be great by May!

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."

by nikki on Jan 22, 2009 1:04 PM EST up reply actions

May?

That’s a little soon. Assuming the estimates turn out to be right, he’s off the bike until April. Maybe he’s good by July.

by Jen See on Jan 22, 2009 1:21 PM EST up reply actions

Could be that the doctor is pulling a bad April's fool on him

- “you’ve been able to train for a month :p”

by OctaBech on Jan 22, 2009 1:55 PM EST up reply actions

Well that question begs thought

Last year Greipel earned most of his 120 VDS points with the “gift” stage win in the Giro. 80 points there. But the larger point for this guiy is that he was one of those select few riders who had a LARGE discrepancy between his VDS rating and his CQ rating. In other words he finished way up in the CQ standings, among the superstars. He earned diddly on the cobbles though- which is what he’ll now miss. He also earned loads of points @ Eneco…

So though he’s hurt now I’m not sure that devalues him in VDS terms. I can see him leading Cavendish out in the Tour rather than the Giro and the Tour is more sprinter friendly. Then Andre could do some of the later season races like Eneco again and say Poland, where he could pick up VDS points.

by ursula on Jan 22, 2009 1:11 PM EST up reply actions