Bozic out six weeks with broken wrist

Astana’s rising star Borut Bozic will sit out the next six weeks due to a broken wrist he suffered in a crash at Paris-Roubaix last Sunday.

Bozic was enjoying a strong cobbled campaign in which he took second place at Dwars door Vlaanderen and Ghent-Wevelgem. When he crashed out of the “Hell of the North,” he was in the lead group of 10 riders before going down hard in a cobbled left-hand corner. He abandoned on the spot and quickly sought medical attention.

Bozic is expected to leave the hospital Thursday. The accident dings his own spring form, but his Astana squad will push into the Ardennes fully loaded, with new-hire Vincenzo Nibali leading the charge in the hilly one-day races.

“The doctors put some metal pins in me, because the break was very complicated,” Bozic said in a team release. “At most they say there is a six-week recovery process, but we will come back after one week for more consultation before we can make any decisions. The most important thing is that everything gets fixed and that my wrist is going to be OK.

“This is the first time I have ever broken my wrist, and it’s quite painful. I was OK to travel home Sunday night, but on the plane I began having really bad pain. My wife picked me up at the airport and we went immediately to the hospital for X-rays. On Wednesday, I went in for surgery and I will go back on Saturday for a follow-up consultation with the doctors here in Ljubljana.”

Bozic, the current Slovenian national road race champion, is in his second season with Astana. He has won stages at the Tour of Britain, Etoile de Besseges, the Vuelta a Espana, the Tour du Limousin, and the Ronde van Belgie.