Finnish downhill mountain bike World Cup winner Matti Lehikoinen has operation scars totalling 62cm in length, but the 25-year-old is at his happiest pushing the limits on two wheels.
Braced for impact
"In late 2007, just after I’d signed my new contract with the MS-Racing team, I broke my fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. I was being filmed, and I was a bit too slow on a drop, got my rear wheel stuck and flipped forwards. The accident could easily have turned out differently; I was incredibly lucky not to incur nerve damage. Since then, I’ve worn a neck-brace – sometimes."
Watch your wrists
"In August 2008, at the World Cup in Australia, I got a move wrong and broke both wrists – the radius, the scaphoid bones, the trapezoids, all broken – as well as damaging ligaments and tendons. It took some butchery to cobble it together again. The fact that they had to take a bit of my pelvic bone and embed it into the scaphoid bone was the least of their worries. The whole mess in the area was worse. The doctors had to cut all the way around my wrists to be able to reconstruct them. And they did it very well. Now I can do everything bar press-ups. For downhill I use special supports that the guys at the Allsport Dynamics sports-brace company customised for me."
Crash landing
"At the World Cup in Fort William last year, I landed awkwardly on my knees when I fell, and got a piece of metal rammed right into the flesh just above me left knee. Not only did that give me a pretty ugly wound which took ages to heal, it also meant I couldn’t take part in the World Cup. I had to get a whole load of MRI scans to work out whether I’d torn the ligaments and tendons. Luckily I hadn’t."
World on his shoulder
"In 2002, I broke my collarbone when – ahem – dismounting over the handlebars, and that had to be screwed back together. In 2005, I broke the rotator cuff in the same shoulder and tore two ligaments. One shoulder’s hung a bit lower than the other ever since. Basically it’s OK, but I have to make sure to build up enough muscle to keep the shoulder stable. That’s why I do a lot of work with elastic straps. Swimming is also good, especially for the fresh scars. I was once playing around with a measuring tape: altogether I’ve got 62cm of operation scars on my body."
Mental scars
"Of course injuries also leave their mark inside your head. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t get pensive after a fresh injury. But as soon as you’re on the mend, all you want to do is get back on the bike. When I had my wrist troubles, my doctor told me he thought my biking days were over. Six months after the operations, I got back on a cross-country bike for the first time on the quiet. Just the sensation of being able to ride again was worth all the pain. And what did my doctor have to say about that? That you shouldn’t believe everything doctors say."
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