After a storming start to the season, Team Sky’s soon to be 23-year-old prodigy, Edvald Boasson Hagen, saw his spring campaign derailed in agonizing fashion. An Achilles tendon injury cancelled his participation in all races since Milan-Sanremo, and an early season highlighted by four wins and scores of top placings, was ruined.
It has been six weeks now since Boasson Hagen’s Achilles tendon went haywire. Boasson Hagen has resumed training and by all accounts is on track for a July 3rd start in Rotterdam for the Tour de France.
Team Sky’s senior sports director, Scott Sunderland, comments on his rider’s return to the bike and his possibilities for the Tour de France: “He’s training very well now, but over the next two weeks, he must work out 100 percent.”
Boasson Hagen’s original plan was to return at next week’s Tour de Picardie, “It has been important to have the goal of returning at Picardie, because everything else has been so uncertain,” states the soft spoken Norwegian.
After recent training sessions and a hard look at his schedule, Boasson Hagen and Team Sky determined that, “It is better for my Achilles to wait a bit longer.” So he’ll push his comeback to the end of May, when he’ll take part in the Bayern Rundfahrt from May 26-30.
If his progress can continue unhindered, Sunderland believes that Boasson Hagen could still have a successful Tour de France:
“He may not be 100 percent, but Edvald Boasson Hagen is a very good bike rider, even if he is not 100 percent.”
Boasson Hagen is himself fairly confident, but not overly so, about his Tour start: “I should be able to do it, but I’m not promising anything.”