After crashing on the final day of team camp in December, Chris Hamilton underwent swift surgery on his collarbone. After initially progressing in a positive direction, unfortunately in the last few days, Chris has suffered a setback in his recovery, and he is unable to start in his home race at Tour Down Under. Gijs Leemreize will replace Chris.
Team Picnic PostNL doctor Camiel Aldershof provides an update: “Chris’ recovery was going well; he has been back outside on the bike for a couple of weeks, and we were quite positive that he could start next week at the Tour Down Under. Unfortunately, over the last few days he has suffered a set-back and is now in quite some discomfort. We will conduct further assessments on him, and there is a chance that he requires a re-operation on the collarbone.”
Team Picnic PostNL Tour Down Under coach Matt Winston said: “We are really disappointed to not have Chris on our line-up, as is Chris himself. As an Australian this race means a lot to him personally, and he is a guy who would have really brought value to our GC goals here in the race. We know that both our medical team and Chris have done all they could to try to get him to the start line but with the pain that he is in, it’s important that Chris takes a step back to recover and refocus on his next key block. With Gijs as our replacement, we still aim to take on the GC with Oscar as our finisher and go for it in the sprints with Tobias. Obviously, Gijs’ preparation for the race in terms of heat acclimatisation and jet lag has not been as optimal as we would have liked, but he is fresh out of a successful training block in Calpe with the team and we are confident that once he has settled in, he will be of great value to our goals here in Australia.”