Ellen van Dijk and Elisa Balsamo have both made positive steps in their training with a focus still on making the Paris Olympic Games after sustaining injuries in June and May respectively.
The Dutchwoman is still on the mend from fracturing her ankle in a training crash, jumping into training at home with a cast on her right foot after undergoing a successful surgery. But on reflection, the experienced Van Dijk has called it a “miracle” that she wasn’t more severely injured.
“To be honest, the last two weeks haven’t been easy for me. On the 3rd of June, I crashed during a training ride on my TT bike. I hit a small trailer at full speed. After all, the only serious injury was my broken ankle,” said Van Dijk in an Instagram post.
“That was actually a small miracle, it could have been so much worse. But I needed surgery and I couldn’t ride my bike for a while.”
Van Dijk has 37 days to get back to fitness for the Paris Olympics time trial on July 27 but she’s going to give everything to try and add an Olympic Gold Medal to her illustrious palmares. It’s no certainty whether the 37-year-old will make the start but she’s hoping to use the lessons learned from returning to form after giving birth to her first child to her advantage.
“In my mind, it is certainly possible. But I can't train fully yet. I won't know for sure until about three weeks from now. I saw during my pregnancy how quickly everything came back. This is a completely different situation, but I gain a lot of hope and confidence from it,” Van Dijk told the In Het Wiel podcast.
"I don't know yet whether my dream is shattered. I have already decided: this is the biggest challenge in my career.”
“My only focus is to recover as quickly as possible and get back to standard as quickly as possible. Of course, it's not ideal, but the situation is what it is. I'm just trying to get to Paris in the best possible way.”
Van Dijk’s Lidl-Trek trade teammate Balsamo has similarly made a positive turn in her approach to the Olympics, with a return to racing possible at the Italian national championships road race this Saturday, June 22 according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The former World Champion broke her nasal bone and second metacarpal in a horrific crash with Sofia Bertizzolo at La Vuelta a Burgos Féminas on May 16 and had been training in a brace on her left hand.
Gazzetta reported that she has now removed this and returned to training on the track in Montichiari with the Olympics in mind. If able to regain her fitness, Balsamo is expected to compete across the road and track events in Paris.
