Luke Rowe: From breaking a leg in 20 places to the Abu Dhabi Tour
Feb 20 2018 09:35 pm CET
Photo of Luke Rowe
After breaking his leg in more than 20 places, Luke Rowe (Team Sky) is ready to rejoin the peloton at the Abu Dhabi Tour.
Last August, the Briton had an accident while rafting at his brother's stag party end ended up with a broken leg and major surgery to fix it. At the end of 2017, the come-back of the rider seemed far away but it came sooner than expected.
"Even at Christmas and going into the New Year, I still thought that the middle of the season was realistic," said Rowe. "When I got back on the bike properly, though, I realised I probably wasn’t as unfit as I thought. I managed to suffer through it a bit at first and I got my head kicked in a few times, but the fitness and strength built up quite quickly.
"On training camp in January I felt good and I went to the team and said that I wanted to do Abu Dhabi. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind, really."
The last race for the rider was the 2017 Tour de France and he is now ready to hit the road again, with a lot of help from his team. "100% I wouldn’t be back this soon without the help of a long list of people. The guys I have been working closest with have put as much into this as I have. I just owe them a massive thank you.
"It’s a perfect race for me to come back. The sprints will be hectic for sure, but the roads are bigger and it’s pretty flat so it’s slightly less stressful. I’ve never been here before so in some ways it’s nice to have that change, to experience new races and a new country."
Rowe wants to take things one day at a time but he knows what would be the perfect scenario for him in the first part of the season. "First thing's first, I need to see how this race goes. Training is going well, but training doesn’t tell the full story. I need to race to know where I am. I want to be at a decent level and be of value to the team.
"I had completely ruled it out, but it might be possible to look towards the back end of the Classics and be there in good shape. That would be an absolute dream. Maybe it’s being too optimistic to be there at 100%. It’s still early in the process and obviously, I’m still doing my rehab. It’s a massive goal, though, and time will tell."
The complete line-up of Team Sky for the Abu Dhabi Tour:
Leonardo Basso
Jonathan Castroviejo
Kristoffer Halvorsen
Tao Geoghegan Hart
Sebastian Henao
David Lopez
Luke Rowe
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