Team GPKR’s Christophe Pourcel underwent successful surgery yesterday afternoon in Marseille while Molson Kawasaki’s Stephen Sword will have the pins removed from his broken foot next week. After a long and painful transfer from Belfast to the hospital in Marseille Christophe Pourcel was welcomed by Dr Olivier Dufour and his colleagues, who then performed several tests. They discovered further damage to his shoulder and decided to operate on Thursday afternoon as the eighteen year old had lost sensation in parts of his lower body.
Today Christophe Pourcel is still hospitalised in Belfast after his heavy crash during warm-up for the Grand Prix of Northern Ireland last Sunday. The 2006 MX2 World Champion had been transfered from Antrim to Belfast, where he underwent further tests with a well known specialist to learn more about his injury. The exams revealed that he has broken his sacrum, the last bone of the spinal column; it is an ‘open book’ fracture and the doctors are still waiting to decide if he will need surgical reconstrution before rehabilitation. His French doctor Olivier Dufour is in permanent contact with the Irish staff, and apparently Christophe will be soon transfered back home to France.