Culverwell’s year ends with injury
A FRUSTRATING year for Guernsey’s star cyclist, Sam Culverwell, has ended with a broken collarbone and an enforced period of training on the indoor ‘turbo’.
Out training recently, Culverwell was involved in a collision with a car on a junction near L’Ancresse.
‘It was pretty unfortunate, but these things happen,’ said the 2019 Guernsey Sports Commission Trophy winner and 2019 Channel Islands’ Rising Star recipient.
Culverwell said that he has been dissuaded from surgery and he will not be sidelined too long.
‘The doctor said four to seven weeks.
‘It wasn’t too bad – there was no bone displacement.’
Having signed for Trinity Racing at the start of 2020, his inaugural season in the professional ranks was ruined by the Covid-19 restrictions that affected all cycling outside the main tour.
Ultimately, Culverwell got to race just one event.
‘It’s just a shame when you train for [ultimately] one race and it is in the Pyrenees and it doesn’t suit you. It was still a great experience though. Better than nothing.’
Culverwell expects to be racing a good deal more in 2021 with the main UCI tour having shown that races can be staged successfully.
A 2021 schedule is imminent, said the Old Elizabethan, who has found the best team he could, says Dan Guillemette, the leading Guernsey sports physiotherapist with top Australian team Mitchelton-Scott.
Guillemette, who has worked with some of the sport’s legendary cyclists over the past decade, said his fellow Sarnian couldn’t have a better outfit for the stage of his career.
‘The team he is in now is one of the top under-23 development teams and the people who run it and the people behind it are pretty influential people.’
Guillemette added that it would be good to think Trinity Racing will be stepping up to Continental level, because it is under a professional umbrella and will go ahead at some level as opposed to federation racing, much of which was cancelled in 2020.
‘Losing a season won’t hurt his development,’ said Guillemette.
‘He is still young, it is not going to have a dramatic affect.
‘It is more the guys who are slightly older who it will have a bigger impact on.
‘He’s still following the right path and trajectory.’
