Steve Cummings makes his return to action from a broken pelvis when he joins the BMC Racing Team for Monday’s start of Pais Vasco.
Recovery Was Painful
Cummings hasn’t raced since Feb. 17, when he was taken down by another rider who had trouble negotiating a turn on Stage 3 of the Volta ao Algarve in Portugal. The 2011 runner-up at the Tour of Britain said he is not fully back to the form he had before the crash. “But I think I’m at a level now where I can survive the race and do work for the team,” Cummings said. “I was off the bike for three weeks and then the first week or so was very painful because the fracture was where I sat on the saddle.” The six-day race includes several mountainous stages, as well as a final-stage time trial.
Last year’s runner-up in the King of the Mountains classification, Amaël Moinard, and three other riders on the BMC Racing Team race roster (Yannick Eijssen, Marco Pinotti and Tim Roe) helped Cadel Evans win the two-day, three-stage Critérium International last weekend. “Amaël is really going well,” BMC Racing Team Assistant Director Michael Sayers said. “This is one of the hardest stage races around because that part of the Basque country is very mountainous.”
