Zulle On Trainer 24 Hours After Collar-Bone OperationAfter the crash on Sunday in the Tour of Switzerland in which he suffered a broken left collarbone, Alex Zulle left Milan the same evening for Barcelona, where he underwent an immediate operation. Conducted by Professor Villarubias, a "traumatologist" well known in car-racing and motorbike racing circles, the operation on the collarbone, which had five breaks, lasted an hour and a half and involved the insertion of five metal pins and a plate. Nevertheless Professor Villarubias, who in the past performed a miracle on injuries suffered by the motorcycling vice-world champion Alex Criville, gave an optimistic prognosis for Zulle's being able to take part in the Tour de France.Yesterday (June 23) Zulle had an hour-and-a-half session on a home trainer at the Dexeus hospital (a photo in L'Equipe shows him looking a little distressed, but not much more than usual, pedalling away with a large plaster on his shoulder and a drip going into it -- the liquid in the bottle looks like blood but it might be milk of human kindness or some other emollient. Sitting next to him is Manolo Saiz on the cellphone. The caption, cheesily, has Saiz telling the good news on the phone -- well, I wonder cynically if he's not ordering his lunch). "If we must give an answer this evening," Saiz told Spanish sports daily Marca, "I'd say it's 100 per cent he'll be at the Tour start. What realy surprised me was that he gave no sign of any suffering when holding the handlebars." Today (June 24) the medical team around Zulle had even projected a session on the road (a test to be precise) and from tomorrow, if all goes well, Zulle will head for the Pyrenees, where it's said he'll stay a week where it's expected he'll do some climbs. "As far as I'm concerned," said Saiz, "nothing has changed. Alex still remains one of our two leaders. If I'm counting correctly, he's still got three weeks in front of him before he hits the mountains. I'm confident." Giant-AIS Under 23 ReportThis result is a little different. I (Brian Stephens) took some of the guys to a smaller race not far from where we live here, yesterday. The big news is that John Pollock, after being overawed by the size of the fields and the speed of the competition since he's been in Europe, won his first prize money yesterday. He outsprinted a group of 20 riders to finish in 18th place and I haven't seen a happier rider than John when he found out it paid. The field of 80 riders splintered into little groups over a tough 130km round a 7.5km circuit. The blustery, showery conditions made life a little tougher. Marcel Gono started the ball rolling, getting into the first break and doninating the mountain sprints a looking very much like a winner, but unusually for Marcel, cracked over the closing stages to run 16th. The race was won by Jan Bratowski from the e-Plus-Team and was called Bolanden Strassen Rennen. |