Nibali undergoes surgery

Manama : Bahrain Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali has taken advantage of the off-season to have a metal plate removed from the left collarbone he fractured during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games road race.

According to the Bahrain-Merida team, the minor operation was carried out Thursday morning in Bergamo by Professor Claudio Castelli – the Director of the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology in the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo.

Bahrain-Merida team doctor Carlo Guardascione said that Nibali would need 8-10 days of absolute rest to allow the surgical wound to heal perfectly.

Nibali crashed on the descent of the final climb of the Rio Olympic road race and suffered a double fracture in his collarbone while trying to split a three-man breakaway group that included Rafal Majka (Poland) and Sergio Henao (Colombia). Nibali was expected to attack on the tricky descent toward the finish line, but he and Henao crashed around one of the testing switchbacks. Majka was caught by chasers Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium) and Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark) in the last kilometre of the race, and the Belgian won the sprint to the line for gold.