A lot of athletes who suffer injuries throughout their career never really make it back to winners’ row while some hardly ever come back to competitive sport. However, this is not the case with champion cyclist, Team Gillette Evolution’s Raul Leal who is racing his road to recovery faster than expected.
Raul Leal was severely injured last November
With predictions of Leal being out of competition for the first half of the season, it now looks as if that date might be drawn closer as Leal is healing at a faster rate and is patiently awaiting his time to get back to winning ways.
On November 16 last, Leal, for the second time in his career, was one of two men involved in a collision which left him hospitalized. Leal collided with another motorcyclist along the West Ruimveldt Front Road as he was heading to a ‘wake house’ in South Ruimveldt close to his home at about 21:15h. The youngster suffered injuries to his back, face as well as a broken right arm and toes on his right foot. The injuries to his leg were at the same spot where steel was implanted a few years ago when he suffered his first major accident.
When Guyana Times Sport caught up with the top ranked rider, the plaster casts had been removed from his arm and leg. He also indicated that most of the pain had eased.
The 20-year-old said “I removed the cast from my hand on old year’s day [December 31, 2016] and removed the cast from my foot last Friday,” adding that he “has to do therapy to get his toes working back.”
Leal is not giving up on the sport he loves saying he is determined to make a comeback to the top of the sport once again, already stating that he is bound to return to cycling.
“To be honest there will be no quitting because cycling is a hobby I really love a lot and I mean even if this throws me off one, two, three even five years, whenever, I always have the passion for the sport and will always continue with it” the Evolution rider said.
Leal said within the next two weeks he should be back on the saddle if all things go according to plan and while he cannot put his foot in the footwear currently, he is working hard on getting that back in order so that he can return to training.
