Pol Espargaro has had surgery on his right arm to fix a problem with arm pump, the rider’s management team announced in a press release.
The Monster Tech 3 Yamaha rider was operated on in Madrid by Dr. Angel Villamor, widely regarded as one of the top authorities on treating compartment syndrome, and the surgeon who treated Dani Pedrosa.
The surgery is judged to have gone well, and Espargaro is due to be examined again at the end of the week.
Espargaro suffered sporadic problems with arm pump for some time, but had not felt the problem was bad enough to require surgery.
After the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, the Tech 3 rider had undergone extensive physiotherapy to try to treat the condition, but a more severe attack during the race in Le Mans, had decided that surgery was the only option to cure the problem.
Espargaro suffered a severe lack of strength in his right arm from Lap 7 of the French GP onwards, and this had been the deciding factor.
In the press statement, Espargaro said “in reality, I had noticed this feeling in my forearms several times before, but never gave it too much importance. But in the last two races it was a bit worse. In Jerez, I put it down to the type of track and the effort I had used in the first laps trying to follow Lorenzo and Marquez, and then Rossi and Crutchlow, but in Le Mans it was worse, because it affected my riding very quickly.”
Espargaro elected to have surgery as quickly as possible, so that he had as much time as possible to recover ahead of the next race. The Italian Grand Prix at Mugello takes place in twelve days time, giving him time to prepare for that race.
It has been a busy week in medical terms for both Espargaro brothers. While Pol was having surgery for arm pump in Madrid, Aleix was under the knife to fix the ligaments he tore in a crash in FP3 at Le Mans.
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