Tristan Lemire’s bad luck

A stupid injury, which added to another misfortune in a difficult season for the 19-year-old athlete, deprived him of continuing his experience during the final stage of the World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne.

“It’s the first time in my career that I’ve been injured without falling…,” sums up Le Maire, who came to meet Le Soleil on Sunday in the press room, moving on crutches.

During the first training session on Saturday morning, Lemerre injured his knee. “I came out of a turn unbalanced and put one foot on the ground and that’s when my knee buckled,” commented Lemire, providing this writer with a video of this incident, all trivial but with important consequences.

The ligament is affected

His team doctors told him that the medial collateral ligament was affected, but fortunately the injury did not appear to be very serious. “The ligament is affected, but it looks more stretched than torn, which would be good news,” he explains, adding that an MRI should give it the right picture.

Lemerre, who missed several competitions this year due to a broken hand, was disappointed because he had hoped to perform well at the end of the match. “I was happy to find my rhythm again, it was a great build-up,” he explained.

“I don’t know why there are people like (Irishman) Ronan Dunne who fall down all the time, but they don’t get injured while I’ve had to deal with many injuries since the beginning of my career.”

— Tristan Lemire, who also suffered a hand injury at the start of the season

However, the cyclist admits that a season-ending injury is always “better” than an injury during the season. “You have time to fully recover before the start of next season. “I’m still curious to know the exact nature of my injury so I can figure out how to plan my training.”

Happy for Goldstone

Lemire was also happy for his compatriot and friend Jackson Goldstone, who won Saturday’s event and finished second in the World Cup standings.

“Me, Jackson, Jacob Jewitt and (New Zealander) Toby Meek have been running together since we were 13-14 years old. In that time, it was always either Jacob or me who won!” He remembers.

“It’s crazy to see everyone’s progress, because Jackson was a little slower than us in the old days. “It’s great, I’m happy for him, but now we’re a little tired of seeing him win!” He laughed at the end.