"Day-by-day" recovery for Armstrong

Lance Armstrong has posted a video message on his foundation's website www.livestrong.com, updating the public about his collarbone surgery. Speaking from his home in Austin, Texas, the seven-time Tour de France winner explained that his injury sustained at the Vuelta a Castilla y León was quite a complicated one.

"Initially, we thought that this was a simple fracture of the clavicle, but due to ... the difficulty of taking an x-ray right after an accident - we didn't really get a clear picture there in Spain, so as we came home, we did additional x-rays, additional CT scans and realized that the collarbone was actually in quite a few pieces," Armstrong said.

Surgery performed at Austin Sports Medicine was successful. A plate "with quite a few screws" was fixed on the bone. "That should keep things together. Ultimately, that will have to come out but for now it's necessary."

Throughout his career, Armstrong very rarely suffered injuries resulting from crashes. "This is sort a new experience for me, so there's a lot of questions that will have to be answered. In almost 20 years of pro cycling, I very rarely had crashes. I've been very lucky, very blessed when it comes to that."

One of the questions will be the timing of his return to training on the stationary bike - and ultimately coming back to racing, and how this will affect his race schedule. All Armstrong could say on the topic at the moment was "We don't know how my recovery will go. We'll just take it day by day and ultimately get back on the bike and try to sort things out."

It is believed that his participation in the Giro d'Italia is not in jeopardy. However, the process of rehabilitation cannot be forecast at this point, and Armstrong may have to re-assess his ambitions for the Italian race if he can take the start.