Robert Gesink's positive attitude towards recovery - "My love for cycling conquers all and then we go for it again"

The beginning of the season did not go well for Jumbo Visma rider Robert Gesink. In the first stage of the Tour Down Under, he suffered a crash that resulted in a pubic bone fracture, requiring a lengthy recovery time and preventing him from competing in the peloton.

While it wasn't the optimal outcome he had aimed for, his fondness for cycling served as his inspiration to overcome the arduous recovery process and reunite with his teammates in the peloton. “I had a hard time with that. But pretty soon my love for cycling conquers all and then we go for it again,” he wrote in RIDE Magazine. He has made full recovery and now riding in Volta Ciclista a Catalunya for his team.

He continues, “Of course, you think: this is not about anything and what am I still doing all this for. After such a fall you have to let everything come over you and try to push the misery away from you as much as possible. When you've hit rock bottom, you start doing what you always do as a top athlete; improve yourself.”

he had experienced accidents before and, being an optimist, he preferred to concentrate on the positives rather than the negatives. “It may sound strange, but the beauty of a rehabilitation process is that you feel that you are making progress in leaps and bounds. From walking with crutches, crawling onto your bike via a ladder and then lifting your left leg over the saddle again, those are big steps. So I can enjoy that again,” concluded Gesink.