Injured Reserves Report: Mending Maggy

We can now officially remove Maggy (Magnus Backstedt) from our Injured Reserves list.

Tuesday, he completed the difficult 7-day Italian stage race Tirreno-Adriatico. He finished (how shall I say it?) well back. But given his Tour of Qatar crash in January, and the surgical repair of his fractured right clavicle in London the next day, that’s pretty impressive. “All is going to plan for the classics,” he says.

Maggy did give me a scare two days before the start of Tirreno: “I have a bit of an infection in the wound from the operation…” started the email. Not the sort of note a team doctor wants to get. Since I was at Paris-Nice, I asked soigneur Sandra Ni Hodnae, to email a photo of the infection (left).

An infection can be disastrous if it penetrates to the level of the plate and screws which are holding together Maggy’s clavicle. From experience, however, I was reasonably certain that this was a “stitch abscess.” This is where one of the deep stitches doesn’t dissolve fast enough and sets off a foreign body reaction and not a true infection.

Matt Rabin, our assistant team chiropractor, was able to arrange for another team’s doctor to dig around in there (ouch!) with a hemostat and pull out 10cm/4 inches of unabsorbed stitch.

So now the wound is nearly healed, Maggy’s done his return-to-competition stage race, and he’s well on track for the Spring Classics. Go Maggie!!!

- PDS