“look at the inside of my knee. operated yday by Prof.Alfredson in Sweden. scar tissue had adhered + blocked tendon now freed up - more rehab!” tweeted sprinter Robbie McEwen (Katusha) on his Twitter page this morning (there was also a link to a picture of the surgery). The Australian fastman has been plagued with injury all season and has not raced competitively since crashing 2km from the finish of Stage 2 of the Tour of Belgium in May.
The crash at Knokke-Heist broke McEwen’s left tibia and badly damaged his left knee requiring the bone to be held together with screws for almost three months. Despite their removal in late August, further surgery was apparently required to correct problems caused to the tendons of his knee.
Further ‘tweets’: “inside of my knee showing scar tissue being removed. it was completely blocked so tendon couldn’t move” and “after removal of scar tissue and new blood vessels. Freed up, this is how a tendon should look. it was stuck all the way around. Result of the initial crush injury” linked to more pictures and gave further details of the surgery performed.
Recognising the somewhat graphic nature of the pictures showing close-up views of the surgery he joked: “no, my tweets aren't for the faint hearted ;-) should see the video!!”
“yes i was awake,” he ‘tweeted’ later, “local anaesthetic. i was watching but someone else took the pics for me. The uni sports centre here in Umea is fantastic!”
Unsurprisingly, this marks the end of McEwen’s season and he will be spending the autumn and winter recovering and preparing for the Australian Championships and the Tour Down Under in January.