MXGP BLOG
best (airbooted) foot forward. So, a re-write of this Blog was needed. Questions and thoughts about the potential of Jeffrey Herlings to get anywhere near his magnificent 2018 campaign have now been scrubbed. MXGP was, of course, an open book as the Italian championship formally reignited the competitive year and the first ebbs of bench racing last weekend, but the World Champion’s broken foot means the tale of 2019 is now very much a blank page. What does Herlings’ latest ailment mean? First of all there is the severity of the injury. The Dutchman avoided damage to his ankle when he careered towards the side bank of mud at the Albaida circuit in southern Spain and trapped his right limb between the bike and terrain in the crash but it is a complicated area for fractures. In the case of MX2 Kemea Yamaha star Ben Watson the Brit broke the navicular bone in his left foot in Argentina for the second round of 2016 Grand Prix and missed the rest of the season.
Noises from KTM are not of major distress, but this is of course a setback and the full extent of what Herlings will need to do in order to be able to walk and then consider a return to his 450 SX-F have yet to come to light. Secondly Herlings has been here before. A broken right hand two weeks before his MXGP debut in 2017 (combined with a self-admitted questionable attitude to the premier class after another resolute MX2 title in ’16) meant the opening rounds of that championship were some of the hardest and most unerring of his career. Jeffrey righted his mind, kept patient with his hand and recovered to decimate the end of the ’17 calendar, and that fed right into his milestone 2018. So now it is a waiting game. But the news is a formal invitation for his rivals, in particular Tony Cairoli, to hit the beginning of 2019 with relish and to stockpile points from the very first gatedrop.
Herlings will return strong and should eventually reach the same ’18 pomp but this temporarily hobbling will have diminished his unbeatable status. If he can find fitness and banish the kind of insecurity that marked his 2015 MX2 year where a succession of injuries dented his prowess and arguably disturbed his focus then it will be the biggest fight of his career. There were times in 2018 where Herlings only had himself to beat. The fact that the mistakes and the crashes did not come only added to the image of the perfect season. The circulating and conquering #84 really was the sight of an athlete/team/ motorcycle package at the top of the pile. Now, for the second time in a row the 24 year old is negotiating the pain, worry and anxiety of injury sustained on the practice track. Worryingly it means another term where Herlings is paying a visit to the hospital.