Alessando Fancellu: “Some friends have told me that it’s like I’ve been born again”
The Lombard rider, who suffers a scaphoid fracture, small fractures to his face and multiple contusions, will be transferred to Italy on Monday after spending five days in hospital in Lugano following a collision with a vehicle that suddenly swerved and blocked his path.
It has been a difficult time for Alessandro Fancellu. The very young rider of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team suffered an accident last Wednesday in the streets of Lugano, when he hit a vehicle that made a sudden turn without noticing the presence of Fancellu and other riders. A very violent accident that initially raised many fears.
The impact, head-on, was very strong, but the rider was quickly taken to the hospital in Lugano. There, several small fractures in the bones of his face and another fracture of the scaphoid of his right wrist were quickly confirmed. Subsequent medical tests have ruled out a knee injury, as initially assessed by the doctors.
“I’m much better now. What hurts me most is my face, sometimes a little bit my head. It’s also becoming less difficult for me to speak, at the beginning it was more difficult because of all the stitches in my lip. The worst thing is all the small fractures I have in my skull. The first night was very bad, I couldn’t sleep at all because of the pain. From the second night on I started to feel much better, I was able to start eating and I was able to sleep for a long time without waking up”, says the Lombard. Fancellu, who has been in hospital in Lugano for the last few days, will be transferred home on Monday.
“I still don’t know whether I will go to Bergamo on Monday or tomorrow, Tuesday, where I will undergo surgery on my wrist and another on my nose. Once I’ve had the operation, I don’t know if I’ll have to spend a few more days in hospital or not. That remains to be seen,” he says. The operating table awaits him above all to be able to reduce the fractures.
“I want to thank all the people who have been interested in me these days. Many people have been concerned about my state of health. I am grateful for that. It has been a difficult experience. Some friends have told me that it’s as if I had been born again, that it could have been much worse… I can’t say. It all happened very quickly. We were going down a two-way street, a car was coming in the opposite direction. At that moment it was raining. Suddenly the car turned left and cut us off. I was the first in the group and didn’t even have time to brake. I hit the car and was thrown out of the car. The driver said he hadn’t seen us”, he explains.
Fancellu’s first season in the ProTeam category did not go as well as the Lombard cyclist would have liked. Fance made his debut early, in the 1969 Clássica Comunitat Valenciana, but race suspensions in February kept him out of competitions until March, when he raced the Gran Premio Industria & Artigianato, the Per Sempre Alfredo and the Settimana Coppi e Bartali. In the Tour of the Alps, his next race, he eventually withdrew with discomfort that has prevented him from racing again since then. Fancellu had planned to compete in several races in this final part of the season. “The season is over. It has been a strange and difficult year. It’s all about looking to the future and thinking about 2022, which we will face with great enthusiasm”.
[ Atila Madrona]
