"I have banished every form of doubt from my mind" - Tao Geoghegan Hart's rehab now fully completed after nightmare Giro d'Italia crash

After much promise, Tao Geoghegan Hart's Giro d'Italia ended in disappointment when a brutal crash saw the Maglia Rosa hopeful depart the race in an ambulance.

The incident not only ended Geoghegan Hart's Giro d'Italia but also his whole season. “The rehabilitation went well,” the 28-year-old tells Het Nieuwsblad. “Since September it has become clear that I could be here today as a normal cyclist, which I did not think possible in July. The daily rehab is now behind me.”

After a long few months off the bike, working hard to rehab and recover, Geoghegan Hart is currently alongside his new Lidl-Trek teammates in Spain having completed his transfer from the INEOS Grenadiers. “On September 28, I rode my road bike for the first time, and I now dare to call myself a cyclist again," he says, referencing his time spent at a special institute in Amsterdam. “I wanted to be somewhere where something was happening off-course because you recuperate for a maximum of four or five hours a day. I also wanted to be somewhere where I wouldn't be constantly confronted with the race. Yes, I missed the bike and the lifestyle that came with it, but I was still working hard every day, far away from the boys."

“I have learned a lot about my body over the past year. But look, here I am back in a hotel full of cyclists, with people who do everything for me," Geoghegan Hart concludes. “No doctor can guarantee that. I will never be able to look back on my career without making the distinction between before and after the fall. Currently everything seems fine: flexibility is back, there are no power differences between left or right. I have banished every form of doubt from my mind."