The Herlings Injury - Comments

Posted on July 19, 2021

Obviously, what happened yesterday to Redbull KTM Factory rider Jeffrey Herlings isn’t great. We all want to see the best riders, all fit and racing against each other and for sure we all want to see Jeffrey Herlings in action. Still second in the MXGP championship points, on 143 points, the same as Antonio Cairoli and Romain Febvre and 23 points down in series leader Tim Gajser, Herlings isn't out of it yet.

There is no doubt that Herlings came up a little short after the jump and Ivo Monticelli jumped a little further than many of the other riders, so where to put the blame seems difficult, and in fact, you could just put it down to a racing incident.

MXGP is so out of control at the moment with the pace like we have never seen motocross and the Oss circuit, while I found to be really nice to look at, and it displayed great racing, it was narrow and with those big 450’s all banging bars, it is little surprise that things like this happen.

Monster Energy Kawasaki rider Ivo Monticelli gave his opinion on the crash to the Kawasaki media guy Pascal Haudiquert, who sent out the press release last night.

“Everyone always tries to push on the first lap,” Monticelli said. “I arrived at the uphill jump and Jeffrey jumped short. I was already in the air and couldn’t miss him. I’m OK. I am so sorry for Jeffrey, but this is our sport. The bike was damaged, but I got back up after everyone else had gone past and found a good rhythm to finish eighteenth.”

Later in the day Monticelli also had the unfortunate coming together with Jeremy Seewer who had crashed and lay on the ground and the Italian rode straight over his head. Seewer had crashed and both Antonio Cairoli and Monticelli had nowhere to go in a split-second incident, which again fortunately didn't cause Seewer too much damage.

Defending World MXGP champion and red plate owner Tim Gajser saw everything that happened and saw it pretty much the same as everyone watching on television, that Herlings didn’t jump due to getting out of shape before the jump and Monticelli jumped further, causing the accident.

“I was next to Jeffrey,” Gajser said. “I see Ivo launched really long and I think Jeffrey made a mistake just before the take off and that is why he was short. It is really bad luck, and of course I wish him a quick recovery. I have ridden with a similar thing in 2017. Afterwards it is like somebody is stabbing you with a knife, so he did well.”

Herlings himself will get a better look at the damage today, and I think we can all say that we all want him back, if possible, even for Loket. Not being a doctor, or a racer I have no idea, some people say a broken shoulder blade can take a month to be okay, and some say two weeks. Possibly strapping of the injury and taking pain killers might work, but that we will all find out in the coming days.

“What can I say about today,” Herlings said. “I had high hopes and wanted 1-1. I had a great start in the first moto, but the start device did not disengage immediately up the hill, and I did not jump as far as I usually do out of the waves. The rest is history. I had a lot of pain but thought I’d keep going to try and get 4th or 5th. I saw I was still able to catch the guys so I started passing them even though I could barely hold on for the last three laps. I have a small crack in my shoulder blade, and I still don’t know how bad it is. We had a scan, and it doesn’t seem too bad. I don’t have any pain now but racing a dirt bike is a different story. We’ll have another check tomorrow (today).”

So now lets just wait for some new either from Herlings on social media, or something official from KTM and lets all cross our fingers that the damage isn't too bad and Herlings will line up in Loket for the next round. Surviving in Loket and then going to Latvia and Lommel with a little more comfort would be the perfect outcome.

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