Since his arrival at DSM-Firmenich Postnl (now Picnic Postnl in 2025) last year, Fabio Jakobsen won only one victory, on the Tour of Türkiye last April. A fairly catastrophic assessment for a sprinter who had 45 victories, including stages of large towers and classics, before arriving within the Dutch team. But the 28-year-old Dutchman may have found the cause of his poor performance. He suffers from a limitation of the flow in the iliac artery of his two legs, and will therefore be operated on to try to remedy it.
“I trained well this winter and I approached the season with some confidence. We have obtained results in the top 10 at the UAE Tour and Paris-Nice, but in key moments and high intensity sprints, I suffered; My legs just didn’t work as they should. It is a hard psychological blow, of course, but now that we have found the cause of the problem, I hope that the operation will be able to solve it. Sometimes you have to go back a step to be able to take two, and I hope that is what I’m going to do now. »»
Six weeks bicycle for Jakobsen
Fabio Jakobsen, who has already gone through very harsh moments during his career (he had notably touched death during the Tour de Poland 2020, falling heavily on arrival, and had only returned to the platoons eight months later), will be operated this Wednesday and arrested for six weeks without any intense physical activity.
“Fortunately, his return prognosis is more favorable due to the type of limitation; However, this can take some time. We will follow his progress and, when ready, we will gradually resume training by gradually increasing the intensity, ”said the team doctor, Camiel Aldershof. For the moment, the calendar of the suite of the season of Fabio Jakobsen is not known, everything will depend on his healing.
