The Crack in Armstrong's Comeback

By now you've all heard about Lance Armstrong's broken collarbone. He was involved in a pileup in the opening stage of the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in Spain and was flown back to Austin, Texas, where he will undergo surgery on Wednesday.

Doctors said at first that it was not very serious, but it turns out it was "angulated and displaced," according to Armstrong's manager Mark Higgins. Armstong has, surprisingly enough, never broken a clavicle - despite the fact that it is the most commonly broken bone in the human body and is by far the most common serious injury for cyclists.

"Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days," Armstrong said in his Twitter, by way of explanation.

It's a pain with which I am all too familiar.

Two summers ago, just two months into my racing career and fresh off double stage wins and an overall title at the Norfolk Classic, I crashed hard on a training ride and busted the holy hell out of my right clavicle. It displaced into my trapezius muscle and I had to have a pin put in. It was awful. I didn't ride a bike for three months, couldn't drive, could barely feed myself for a couple days and couldn't cut up my own food for weeks.

It doesn't seem like Lance's break is that bad, though, because he's still going to race the Giro, according to his manager Johan Bruyneel, and he doesn't think it will affect his Tour de France at all.

I did some reading on surgical repairs to broken collarbones - about 1 percent of all breaks necessitate surgery, but that figure is much higher for cyclists, who need their clavicles to heal as quickly and efficiently as possible. Recovery can be much quicker with surgery - most impressively, six-time world pursuit champ Rebecca Twigg broke her right clavicle less than two weeks before the 1995 Worlds, had it repaired with a titanium plate, and set a new world record 11 days after surgery.

What a badass.


Image courtesy of VeloNews