"My year is at risk and so is my career" - Ruben Guerreiro worried for future prospects due to double hernia

The Giro d'Italia was originally part of Ruben Guerreiro's plans for 2024, so his absence from the Movistar Team line-up for the race was a surprise.

The 28-year-old Portuguese rider hasn't raced since the GP Miguel Indurain, where he crashed and abandoned. However, speaking to the Lusa news agency, Guerreiro reveals that the fall in the Spanish race only caused him a "dislocated elbow" which didn't prevent him from training or affect his daily life. "I went to Sierra Nevada to prepare for the Giro, but in Sierra Nevada I really started to feel a strong pain in my back, in the lumbar and cervical areas. It was a really strong pain. After tests, two hernias were detected. The specialists say it was due to several falls over the last year," he explains.

"I've been doing normal physiotherapy and my body isn't progressing. Things have really been difficult for me, because I've had a few injuries and falls and they've always been easy to treat and recover from, and now with the two hernias I've been unable to train, to go about my day-to-day life, because it requires a lot of downtime," Guerreiro continues worryingly. "At the moment, I can say that my year is at risk and so is my career, because at this age and with cycling today, it's difficult to stop for so long."

Ruben Guerreiro was the first Portuguese cyclist to win a classification in a Grand Tour. He did so in 2020, when he won the mountain jersey in the Giro, in which he also won a stage. Throughout his career he has represented Trek-Segafredo, Katusha, EF Education-EasyPost and has been racing for Movistar Team since 2023.