On Track Off Road No.183

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.