By Shane Stokes
Team Jayco AlUla’s aim to target the Giro d’Italia with Eddie Dunbar has run into further complications with the Irishman undergoing an operation on Wednesday.
Dunbar crashed on his first day of racing this year, falling on the first stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, and was subsequently diagnosed with a fractured hand.
While the crash happened a full five weeks ago, the Irishman’s recovery has been slower than expected and while he could still ride the Giro, those working with him told stickybottle the latest development was a limitation for the Corkman.
He has been using a home trainer and tried to progress to training on the road, but was forced to back off on that. The team revaluated the situation and a decision was made for him to undergo surgery.
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It is hoped that he will be able to train on the road in two weeks’ time and, all going well, to return to competition at the Itzulia Basque Country stage race starting on April 3rd.
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Dunbar moved to Jayco AlUla over the winter, embracing new opportunities after winning the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali and Tour de Hongrie stage races last season. The Australian team named him as a protected rider for the Giro d’Italia, something he had been lacking at Ineos Grenadiers.
Speaking to Stickybottle, Dunbar’s coach Alex Camier said that the injury and related lack of racing was not ideal, but that Dunbar was doing what he could to address the setback.
“At the end of the day, he’s still training, his physiological condition is still good. Of course, it’s not where it could be without an injury. But he’s ticking the boxes from a training perspective as well as we can. He’s looking after himself that way.
“So as soon as we have a medical all clear on it being safe to race, essentially when the hand is good and strong, then we will go and race. He can train because obviously, it’s not a hand-dominant sport. But racing and training are different…when you’re racing, it obviously does become a little bit more reliant on good confidence through the wrist and through the hands. And so we just need to get to that point, really.”
Dunbar had trained well throughout the winter and was in strong form heading into the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. After competing there he was due to compete in the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico and Itzula Basque Country. Instead he has just one day of racing to his credit thus far this season. Camier accepts that this will affect his condition for the Giro d’Italia. That race begins on May 6th, just over a month after the Itzulia Basque Country event.
“I think we can definitely get to the Giro in condition to have a good race,” Camier said. “But it is fair to say that if Pays Basques is our first race of the season, he’ll have then been effectively riding with injury for seven weeks or more, eight weeks even. So for sure, it’s a limitation.
“But at the same time, we’re balancing that limitation as well as possible. It’s unlikely he could be in his best condition, but how far away from that we’ll have to wait and see. It depends on how these next few weeks go, on how quickly he can make progress.”
