Yorkshireman reflects on slipped disc that almost ended his career
Tuesday 1 March 2016 09:27, UK
Perhaps the starkest account of how close Ed Clancy’s career came to being ended by a back injury last year comes not from himself or his doctors, but team-mate Owain Doull.
"After his surgery, I went to visit him and we went for a pub lunch," Doull recalls. "He couldn't sit down because he couldn't bend his back, so he was kneeling. He had been doing that for weeks.
"British Cycling had to organise a taxi to drive us to the track every day and he would just lie in the back seat."
It was on Monday, September 14, with less than a year to go to the Rio Olympics, that Clancy's problems began. Having completed an arduous edition of the Tour of Britain the day before, he twisted to pick up a suitcase - "there was nothing in it apart from a washbag" - and suffered a prolapse of the L5 S1 disc in his lower back.
The displacement in turn affected the nerves running down his spine and left him struggling to walk, and he remained in that stricken state until he finally underwent surgery in December.
"You're either born with it or you're not," Clancy says. "If you've got degenerative discs, it's not like a ticking time bomb, but at some point, discs are going to prolapse.
"My whole career was in doubt. That was the first question I said my surgeon: 'If this is going to be a reason that I can't kick a football around with my kids, I'm done, I'm out of here'.
"When I came out of that operation and I could walk again, I was like, 'Anything is a bonus. If I can ride a bike, great; if I can make a career out of a bike, even better'."
Less than three months on, Clancy is not only back on his bike but, on Wednesday and Thursday, he will line up alongside Doull, Sir Bradley Wiggins and the rest of Great Britain's men's pursuit team at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London.
He is still far from 100 per cent and has only been training on the track for two weeks, but in that time he did enough to convince his coaches that he could contribute to a gold medal-winning team effort, if only in the early rounds.
"I'm surprisingly good," Clancy says. "I think it's fair to say it's not the best I've ever gone, but 12 weeks after fairly serious back surgery, I'm over the moon."
Despite his obvious relief, Clancy knows he is unlikely to be the the same rider he was before the injury.
Speed and results may well return, but significant changes have had to be made to his position on the bike and doubt has been cast over his long-term future in cycling.
"I'm done in Tokyo [the 2020 Olympics] anyway," he says. "If I can stretch it out another four years, great. I'm super-keen for Rio and if I can drag it out to Tokyo, I'll do it. If not, I'll have to get a proper job.
"In terms of the position on the bike, that has changed and I don't think it's going to change back.
"I used to be able to get my palms on the floor with my hamstring flexibility, but now I can just about touch my toes on my right-hand side. So my saddle has gone down and my bars have gone up, and I think that's something that we'll have to stay with."
Now aged 30 and with Olympic team pursuit gold medals from Beijing and London to his name, the inevitable question is why keep racing and risk further damage?
"You don't realise how much you miss it," Clancy says. "Sometimes you turn up here [Manchester Velodrome] for Revolutions and it's just another race, but when you're lying on your bed at home watching other lads do it, I'd give anything just to be hanging around at the back of that bunch having a laugh with the boys.
"To be honest, I can't think of anything I want to do with my life other than ride a bike right now."
The difficulty facing Clancy is that he is not a member of just any team and can't spend the rest of his career relaxing at the back.
Great Britain are targeting a third consecutive Olympic team pursuit title in Rio and hope to win it in a world-record time of 3min 50sec, or even 3min 49sec.
Wiggins is not ruling out breaking the current record of 3min 51.659sec - set by Clancy, Steven Burke, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh at the 2012 Olympics - in London this week, but Clancy is not confident.
"I don't know about 3min 50sec this week, I'll be honest," he says. "We have done some pretty sharp times on the track and I think a 3min 52sec or 3min 53sec is definitely possible.
"It depends how fast Rio is running, but I think we have got a 3min 49sec in us at some point."
The World Championships take place at the Lee Valley VeloPark from Wednesday, March 2, to Sunday, March 6.
