Tough times for Julian Dean

Dean early in the Volta a Catalunya ©Graham Watson

Apr 13th, 11. The rider the peloton calls 'tough guy' had tough times recently.

Julian Dean suffered more than expected after a recent crash when delayed concussion set in at the airport.

Dean's online diary has not had a lot of positive news to share this season, and the latest edition is one of the worst for bad news.  

It is not written by the Kiwi, but by his wife Carole and tells the tale what happened after Dean left the Tour of Catalunya.

The final stage results showed Dean as a DNF.  His Garmin Cervelo team report mentioned he came down in a big crash early on in the race and despite going to hospital in a neck brace, x-rays had cleared him of major damage.

That's when Carole Dean's account begins.

Dean was dropped at the airport, where he subsequently missed his flight due to being ill in the airport lounge.  As he queued to board the next flight, he passed out.

"Anyway, no one knew of his predicament. I heard from him at 2am in the morning and he was fairly incoherent. He was on a borrowed mobile and failed to tell me anything except that he was ok. By the morning I was freaking out. I had no idea which hospital he was in. No one from the team knew a thing about it so it was a case of googling all the hospitals in Barcelona and calling them one by one to try and find my husband."

Fortunately, Dean was found without too much delay, and had not suffered any major issues. His body's reaction was delayed concussion.

Read Carole's full account here....

After this episode, and a bad case of the flu following it, Dean's race schedule has changed.  He is now racing the Tour of Turkey with the aim of getting back to fitness before the first Grand Tour of the year, the Giro d'Italia.