On Wednesday, September 9, things went wrong for 25-year-old Herlings, who was still World Cup leader at the time and had won 2 races in a row. “I can hardly describe how awful it was to lie there on the floor without feeling from my neck to my legs,” he writes on Instagram.
“The doctors have told me that I got through the eye of the needle and I am lucky that I was not paralyzed.” Herlings claims to have fractures in 3 neck and back vertebrae. “They are stable fractures with small cracks in the bones and the healing process will not take too long.”
“According to the doctors, I will make a full recovery,” said Herlings, who is not taking action yet and can forget a new MXGP world title after his first in 2018.
“I’m screwing it up for the second year in a row, even though I can’t blame myself. I’m sorry to my fans and sponsors that I lost the world title again.”
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Injuries are a common thread through the career of Herlings, who won his first world title in MX2 in 2012 and became world champion in the premier class for the first time in 2018. The following year, he missed almost completely from a lingering foot injury.
Injuries also prevented titles in 2014 and 2015. This season he won 4 races and led the championship until his unfortunate tumble. Herlings has since missed 2 GPs and the Italian Antonio Cairoli has taken over the lead in the World Cup standings.
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