Spainiard Gustavo César Veloso (Xacobeo Galicia) will face a small hiccup in his preparation for 2010 after breaking his collarbone on Saturday when he crashed his mountain bike during a training ride. Veloso hopes the fracture won’t impede his preparations too heavily, aiming to build on this year’s successes which included the ninth stage of the Vuelta a España.
Veloso had been staying in shape through mountain biking and cyclocross, even taking part in a local race on Friday. The 29-year-old was out Saturday to spin out the heavy legs with a fellow cyclist until his training ride took a turn for the worse.
“I had planned a ‘soft’ session today, since yesterday I had trained in the morning and in the evening I attended the cyclocross race. I was out with a cyclist. We were taking it easy. I put the wheel in a creek and was thrown over the handlebars,” said Veloso, overall winner of the 2008 Volta a Catalunya.
“I tend to be very cautious, but I couldn’t help it. I think if I had gone a bit quicker the wheel would have come out of the doldrums, but as it slowly froze [I couldn’t rectify it],” he explained.
The accident marks the first time he has fractured a bone in his 12 years of cycling, but he remains confident that it won’t endanger the upcoming season. “I was training to start the season and looked sharp in cyclocross; without assuming any kind of risk every time I rode I was getting better. Now, after surgery, I will readjust my schedule,” he explained.
Veloso underwent surgery in Lugo, Spain yesterday to ensure a quick recovery process so he can get back to training with his sights on an even better 2010. Veloso hopes to be back on his bike in time for the Pro-Continental teams’ first training camp, being held from January 12 to 22 in the Baixo Miño region of Spain.
The Galician formation was initially left off the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) preliminary list of second tier teams. Representatives from the team met with UCI President Pat McQuaid to discuss their exclusion on December 14th, the final decision is published before January 1st.