Tom Boonen has said he still suffers the aftereffects of a bad crash back in 2015 when he suffered "a brain hemorrhage, a concussion and a six-inch fracture in my skull".
The former world champion and classics legend said his hearing was damaged in the crash, and never recovered. He also suffered from tinnitus - a ringing in the ears - after the fall; a condition that endures to this day, though he has learned to manage it.
The Belgian crashed hard on stage 2 of Abu Dhabi Tour (2.1) in 2015 and though he raced again from the start of the 2016 campaign, taking 2nd in Paris-Roubaix in the spring, he said he was very lucky he wasn't killed on left brain damaged.
“My hearing turned out to be affected, but that saved me in a way: otherwise I wouldn't be here anymore,” he told Humo. "I was catapulted off my bike and fell on the side of my head.
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"My helmet was knocked off, so the impact landed almost entirely on my temple. I was immediately unconscious and bleeding from my ear. At first, bystanders feared the worst. My Polish teammate Lukasz Wisniowski reportedly cried.
"Theo Bos also burst into tears, convinced that I was lying dead on the asphalt. After a few minutes I regained consciousness twice and started running like crazy - a flight response of my body - and then passed out again.
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"The third time I woke up I was strapped into the ambulance. I had a brain hemorrhage, a concussion and a six-inch fracture in my skull. I don't remember anything from that day, everything was told to me later."
Boonen spent two weeks in intensive care and said his skull fracture saved his life because "it ran through my ear, the blood could escape and no pressure built up on my brain". That meant he was not left with any brain injury and was able to recover quicker than expected.
And while he did all he could to get rid of the tinnitus, including seeing several specialists, he decided against having a surgical procedure as it was risky, might not work and may even make the situation worse.
As a result, he still suffers from the condition and has also lost 60 per cent of the hearing in his left ear.
"The sound is still there, but I can often push it into the background," he said. "In bed too: I usually sleep on my good ear, so that the bad ear is facing outwards, and then it bothers me less.
“Actually, I suffer most from my hearing loss. I like being in noise and commotion, but not in a room with a lot of commotion: then I can't follow conversations well.
"I have also learned to sit strategically at the table, always with my good ear directed towards the conversation."
