Julian Dean of Garmin Cervelo has lost contact with the leaders with three laps remaining.(Image credit: Pete Bruggeman)
Julian Dean (Garmin-Transitions)(Image credit: Brecht Decaluwé)
Julian Dean's wife Carole has revealed the Garmin-Cervelo rider suffered a frightening ordeal following his crash on the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya, his first "real race of the season."
Dean was caught up in a crash between Parets del Vallès and Barcelona which resulted in the Kiwi being taken to hospital with a suspected fractured neck. While the 36-year-old was cleared that wasn't the end of his ordeal, after being dropped off at the airport by his team.
"After spending too much time vomiting in the Priority Pass lounge, he missed his flight and had to make a new one and as he waited in the queue to board his new flight he passed out and scored a second ambulance ride in one day," Carole wrote in Dean's online diary. "This time he was taken to a different Barcelona hospital which had no idea he'd already spent time in one earlier in the day. They originally thought he must have taken a few drugs and it wasn't until they spotted his fresh road rash that they finally believed his story.
"Anyway, no one knew of his predicament. I heard from him at 2am in the morning and he was fairly incoherent. He was on a borrowed mobile and failed to tell me anything except that he was ok."
Extremely fearful, Carole and a "great friend" tracked the sprinter down by enquiring at a number of hospitals as to his whereabouts. Eventually successful, the Garmin-Cervelo team doctor was called in and swelling on the brain was ruled out. Dean was instead, experiencing a delayed reaction to concussion.
Unfortunately for Dean, his bad luck continued when ordered to take a three-day break, he "came down with a raging fever which developed into the full gas flu before he could finish coughing up the first lung."
The two-time New Zealand road champion had been struggling for form in recent times. Dean had being trying a different, more relaxed approach to gaining form but he said it hasn't been working.
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"I have not been producing the best data," he said. "And it has felt like the more I trained or the more focused I tried to be, the worse I got, leaving me clueless and frustrated as to what to do next."
Dean will race the Tour of Turkey later this month and is still hopeful of getting a start in the Giro d'Italia.
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