Jorge Martin Breaks Left Wrist, To Miss Buriram MotoGP Opener

By David Emmett |

Jorge Martin has suffered a further setback to the start of his career with Aprilia. The reigning world champion has fractured a number of bones in his left wrist in a training accident. He is to miss the opening round of MotoGP at Buriram after surgery.

Martin was already recovering from breaking his right hand in an early crash at the Sepang test. The Spaniard has now also fractured his left radius and scaphoid. The scaphoid is a particularly troublesome bone to break, as it takes a very long time to heal, having little blood flow.

Martin is set to have surgery to fix the scaphoid and radius on Tuesday. There is as yet no schedule for his return to racing.

A statement from Aprilia appears below:

Jorge Martin suffered a complex fracture of the radius, some carpal bones on the left side and an ipsilateral calcaneal fracture during a training session. After a surgical consultation, it was decided to proceed with surgery, which will take place tomorrow at the Dexeus Clinic in Barcelona to stabilize the fractures of the radius and the left scaphoid. Martin will miss the Thailand Grand Prix and recovery times will be determined after the surgery. Lorenzo Savadori will replace Martin in Thailand.

MotoGP
Buriram, Thailand
Aprilia
Jorge Martin
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Comments

"He is so unlucky if he had a pet duck it would drown" Barry Sheene

Both left wrist and right hand. The Scaphoid fracture is a typical injury for bike riders. Can be slow to heal.

As Apical said, a bike rider injury.

My physical therapist spouse agrees--a classic FOOSH: fall on out-stretched hand. Probably a bicycle crash. Maybe he was looking at his phone while riding like Rins?

Love the Barry Sheene quote, he had a prolific library. A great motivational one was “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out and meet the bloody thing” Imagine stuff like that getting through the ‘million shades of grey’ PR machines nowadays-mindst, Pedro is having a good go at it!

I hate to say it, but I feel like Martin's chance at defending his title, slim though it may have been, is finished already. No testing on a bike completely new to him and missing the first race is quite the hole to dig out from.

That will depend on which Jorge Martin swings his leg over the RS-GP in a few weeks (hopefully not longer) time.

If it's the 2024 version, level headed, focused and calculated, he should be ok.

But if he returns to his old ways from his early (Moto)GP years, we could see him paying a few more visits to Dr. Mir's office in 2025. 

The fact that he managed to crash numerous times already on the RS-GP and bang himself up pretty bad on 2 occasions seems to point to the latter version. I'm sure Massimo Rivola will have a chat with him sooner than later.

Now I'm not very superstitious myself, but this too much bad luck within a short time. 

Could this be the influence of the curse of the # 1 plate... contact the local white witch and break this spell.

Good luck, we need you Jorge.

My orthopod described this as "very nasty" if either articular surface is displaced. The "step" just grinds away at any adjacent cartilage. jsgp is correct, JM can't defend his title; let it go, heal and come back when properly healed.

Sure medical technology/techniques have advanced just like the bikes have but Schwantz retired because of a left wrist injury. He now admits he came back too early and suffered the consequences.

Condensed from an MCN article, any factual/grammatical errors are undoubtedly mine: In 1994 he'd actually started the season with a broken wrist, freshly plated, after a mountain bike crash. 6 rounds in it still hadn’t fully healed, thanks to the racing schedule. At Assen he landed on his injured wrist, and suffered more cartilage damage and an internal fracture. Battling to stay in the championship against a rampant Mick Doohan he went and raced with his arm in a cast and a modified handlebar, planning a couple of laps, “just to see if I could do it”. He actually managed 5th, but over the course of the remaining season it continued to deteriorate despite experimenting with a knee pad to take his weight during braking. By year’s end he was taking his hand off the bar on the straights, flicking it to regain feeling and movement. He still claimed one last race win, at Donington Park, but retired early the next year.

Schwantz says he now regrets taking the risk and still struggles with a stiff crooked wrist. 

James Toseland is another who struggled on after breaking his right wrist early in 2011, eventually reinjuring it and retiring the same year at just 29 years old. He has since had 8 operations to repair various issues, the last as recent as 2023.

Not meaning to be overly dramatic, just hoping he takes the time to properly recover.

  

Very interesting indeed, thanks for that.

There’s numerous examples of riders coming back extremely fast after injury. When it all goes well, we applaud it.

But we (they too one has to wonder) easily forget or don’t even realize the risks that are involved, especially on the long term as these exemples show so clearly.

It’s putting in jeopardy everything they do and love, not to mention they’re making a living out of it.

You see this in all sports and as you rightly point out, it doesn’t always end well. Perhaps not always career-ending, but the potential impact on the level of performance post-injury is often neglected.

Just look at Rins still walking around on cruches. It pains me to see him like that. And you have to wonder how much this affects his riding/results up to this day.

I believe sportsmen and women have to be better protected from themselves and the pressure from the outside, be it employers, family, managers, sponsors, fans, etc.

 In case of Jorge Martin I look at Aprilia to slow their star rider down instead of pushing him to come back as soon as possible. It’s their investment. And it’s not enough to just call and say ‘take your time Jorge’, that’s too easy.