Cairoli And Herlings to Miss MXGP of Germany
KTM announced this morning that both Red Bull KTM MXGP riders Jeffrey Herlings and Tony Cairoli will miss this weekend’s tenth round (of 18) of the 2019 FIM Motocross World Championship in Germany. Herlings crashed during the sighting lap before the first moto at last weekend’s MXGP of Latvia and suffered a broken ankle on his right foot—the foot he had broken in January that kept him out of the first seven rounds of the championship—after another rider ran over his ankle. Herlings went on to win the first moto before pulling to the team truck and having to retire from the competition due to the pain. He did not start the second moto.
According to the team statement, Herlings suffered a “hairline fracture at the base of his tibia bone” and underwent a surgery to have a small reparatory screw inserted to fix this issue. The statement continued to say that Herlings will “remain in a cast and airboot for almost two weeks before he can again go through the physio, rehab and training process.”
Once the second MXGP moto started, the team had more bad news as Cairoli suffered an injury of his own early in the race when he went down hard over a roller and dislocated his shoulder. Cairoli was unable to return to the race and left the weekend with 20 points after his 3-28 moto scores. The team stated that he will miss the race this weekend and will be evaluated in two weeks.
Cairoli posted on his Instagram story this morning:
"Of course, we are very disappointed because we want to be in Germany this weekend for the race,” he said in the video. “Really disappointed about this because, of course, with the shoulder dislocation last week, I expected it to be a little less painful but with further investigation we see that there is something else in the shoulder and in such a short time we cannot have a comeback so we need to skip this race. Doing some therapy, trying to heal up. We have ten days of time now. We will see the shoulder in ten days and make a decision. Of course, I hope I can send good news. But this is the motocross and sometimes it gives us bad news, but I’ll stay positive and try to heal up as soon as possible."
Cairoli, who once had a double digit lead of his own, sits 33 points behind points leader Tim Gajser of Honda HRC through nine rounds.
“We had some amazing success in the last two years in the MXGP class and that has so much to do with our riders, our excellent team and all the support we have in place,” VP of Offroad Robert Jonas said. “Now we are experiencing the hard part of motocross but we know this is part of sport unfortunately. We don’t like it but we have to accept it and do our best to help Jeffrey and Tony get better and soon be in a position to be fighting at the front again.”
The FIM Motocross World Championship takes a break following the MXGP of Germany but will return to action on July 7 for the MXGP of Indonesia.
