By Anthony Tan
Although reported to have broken his collarbone following his crash at last Sunday's Paris-Roubaix, a few questions were raised when Allan Davis' name was seen just below that of Alessandro Petacchi after Wednesday's opening stage of the Vuelta a Aragon in Spain. So Cyclingnews decided to ask the man himself: miraculous three-day recovery or no broken bones?
"Nah, I'm alright, mate, no broken bones," said Davis in his typically laid-back Aussie drawl. "Just a bit of niggling with the bruise on my knee, but nothing too drastic... I'm fine, no dramas."
"I just went down in a wet pavé section, and hit my knee and elbow quite hard," he explained about the pile-up that also took down pre-race favourite Peter Van Petegem (Davitamon-Lotto) in pavé sector 21 at roughly the 128 kilometre mark. "At first, I thought something was wrong with the elbow, but I went and got checked out to make sure nothing was broken, and it turned out to be alright."
The spill was a bad turn of luck for the 23 year-old Queenslander, who contracted a stomach bug at the Three Days of De Panne two weeks before Roubaix, leaving him below his best for the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Gent-Wevelgem, where he finished 70th place in the latter event, almost seven minutes down on winner Nico Mattan. "Really, the first day I felt okay again was Roubaix," said Davis.
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