Keegan Swenson finally got the green light from his doctors, and now he can "push some watts" on the bike to restart his 2026 season.
With just two days of racing completed with his new Specialized Off-road team since February, the three-time Life Time Grand Prix overall champion can now shift his focus to pounding some pain-free laps at the season opener on April 16 at Sea Otter Classic Gravel.
Just days before he competed at Santa Vall in early February, Swenson collided with a door of a car while riding on the streets of Girona. He didn't find out until a week later, when he was in South Africa, that his pain was from a fracture in his iliac crest, and he's been sidelined ever since.
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"His recovery is going smoothly, and he’s able to train normally again per the doctor's clearance, and he is pain-free. He has more follow-ups to ensure he’s continuing in the right direction," a Specialized Off-Road spokesperson told Cyclingnews.
"Sea Otter will be his first race back, followed by Levi’s GranFondo as long as Sea Otter feels good with his body."
The objective for Swenson was to finish the three-lap, 90-mile race in Monterey with a fifth consecutive win, a race he has never lost. This would set him up at the top of the standings in the Life Time Grand Prix for a fifth time as well.
"Fortunately, it's still early in the season, plenty of time til Sea Otter. Just really missed Epic," he told The Cooldown Show podcast co-host Alexey Vermeulen on a recent episode.
The recent injury caused him to pull the plug on several weeks of training in South Africa, as well as a second try at the Cape Epic title with his Specialized teammate Matt Beers. He was only in the Western Cape for two days when he learned the results of an MRI and travelled back to the US for treatment and rest.
"Sofia [Villafañe, his teammate and spouse] was like, you should get an X-ray. I'm like, 'no, I can walk, I'm fine. I can ride by bike, I'm fine.' So I raced Santa Vall on the broken pelvis, and then went to South Africa, assuming it was fine.
"I had one good ride. Was halfway through that ride [when] the hospital called, and they're like, Oh yeah, your pelvis is broken. You need to get on crutches and not ride," Swenson said.
He finally received "the green light to push some watts" a few days ago, the team confirming he would make the start at Sea Otter, where he'll line up with Beers, who finished second last year at the Grand Prix opener, and another new men's addition to the Specialized squad, Mads Würtz Schmidt, who won Santa Vall in February.
However, plans to travel back to Spain and take part in The Traka have been removed from his schedule, "not to overdue things with a three-week race block/international travel after such a big injury", the team confirmed to Cyclingnews. Instead, Swenson will remain in the US and focus on preparations for Unbound Gravel 200, the second stop of the Life Time Grand Prix.
Swenson last won Unbound Gravel 200 in 2023 and was runner-up in 2022. Since then he has been seventh and 14th.
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