Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) certainly isn't a stranger to recovering from surgery and broken bones but even though the Australian rider has the comeback drill down to a fine art, the path back toward riding and racing has been particularly challenging this time.
The rider crashed and broke her femur while training in August, quickly bringing an already late-starting season to an early halt, but not before delivering two stage wins and a spot on the overall podium at the Giro d'Italia Women and a runner-up spot on the Col de la Madeleine stage at the Tour de France Femmes.
Gigante, who joked she's almost been living at the Victorian Institute of Sport during her intense rehabilitation period, had said on social media last month that she was now able to ride indoors and then followed up on Sunday with another post on her progress.
"Recovery is a bit more of a slog than I initially expected… I must have been a combination of naive and optimistic," said Gigante on social media.
"I like uphills more than I like uphill battles, but I’m doing my best to stay positive and not skip a single rep out of my billion physio exercises!"
AG Insurance-Soudal had certainly flagged at the time of the injury that Gigante would be out of competition for some time, outlining that she would be "sidelined from competition for several months".
The Melbourne-based rider had already missed the earlier part of the 2025 season , given she was recovering from iliac artery endofibrosis surgery, a period of racing including the Australian summer block where she has a history of finding much success which in 2024 included the Santos Tour Down Under win.
Her likely timeline for a return to racing this time is yet to be outlined, with a further stretch needed before she can get back to riding on the road, let alone start racing.
"Riding will be all indoors for a while yet, but I started my time on the Zwift Ride with a nice 190km yesterday, so at least I can still train, albeit modified," said Gigante who has slowly been working up her indoor ride distances.
Still, when Gigante does return there will be no underestimating what she can deliver, given how successful her previous comebacks have been.
Not only did the rider manage to deliver a strong run of results at the Giro and Tour de France this year despite not having started her race season until the final day of May, but Gigante has proved she can get herself into strong form on training alone on other occasions as well. Her only UCI race in 2023 was the Tour of Scandinavia yet she hit the ground running in 2024, winning the Tour Down Under on her return to the WorldTour peloton with new team AG Insurance-Soudal in 2024.
