On the mend, in title contention
Athletes have been making comebacks from serious injuries since the gladiators.
Some of the comebacks were especially dramatic. Kerri Strug sticking the vault landing on a badly injured ankle to give the U.S. the Olympic gold in 1996. Tiger Woods winning the 2008 U.S. Open on an aching knee. Peyton Manning resurrecting his career after neck surgery.
Close to home, there was Buster Posey’s return from a fractured fibula and torn ankle ligaments suffered in 2011.
Fans of supercross would add Ken Roczen to the list. You might not have heard of him, but he’s one of the best in a sport that sends motorcycle riders on jumps as high as three-story buildings as they race around stadium courses.
The 23-year-old German’s career was in jeopardy when a horrifying accident during an event in Anaheim last January left him with a compound fracture to his radius and ulna (the main forearm bones) and a dislocated wrist and elbow. Over the next several months, he underwent 11 operations.
That he comes into Saturday’s Monster Energy Supercross event at the Oakland Coliseum in third place in the 450cc point standings is stunning.
“My (left) arm will never be where it was before the crash, but it’s good enough for everything I do,” he said in a phone interview last week, before tak- ing third Saturday in Glendale, Ariz.
“In the beginning, we didn’t know if I was going to be able to race again because the injuries were so severe. But mentally, it was not like I was done racing. As soon as I started feeling a little better, I put my head into recovering fully.”
He likes his chances in Oakland, the fifth of 17 events in the series, because he has done well there in the past. Ryan Dungey won the Oakland event last year on his way to his third straight championship. Then he retired.
Roczen’s accident, a few weeks before the Oakland event, was hard to watch, Dungey said at the time.
“I think I can speak for the other riders,” Dungey told The Chronicle. “It definitely humbles us.”
No one was more humbled than Roczen. The mishap made him “value being healthy and happy a lot,” he said. “I’m definitely more patient.”
It was raining off and on at Angel Stadium the day of the accident.
“The track changed every single lap,” he said. “I just hit a kicker (very soft spot) on the bottom. My suspension compressed and unloaded. It threw me forward and ripped my feet off the bike. I didn’t jump off, even though it looked like it. My legs were over my head. I landed right into the next jump.”
He spent the next three weeks in a hospital. He began riding a bike, slowly and on flat ground, at the end of June, when he finally completed all his surgeries. He hired a full-time physical therapist to live with him during his rehab and started hitting the riding hard in October.
Roczen said he’s not surprised he’s so high in the point standings. With 77 points, he trails only Jason Anderson (89) and Barcia (80).
A ninth-place finish in Anaheim on Jan. 19 “screwed me over a little bit,” he said. “I didn’t feel like myself. It was also the place where I crashed last year. I’m glad I got that one over with, but I was pretty disappointed with the finish.”