Thomas Covington had a brilliant end to the MX2 season in 2017 but a torn ACL at the MXoN meant a difficult winter of recovery for the American.
Fortunately Covington, who is going for America’s first world title since 1994 this year, has made a speedy recovery and has already been back on the bike for about a month.
The American even feels that the time off the bike has helped him increase his physical fitness and speaking at the team launch, says he feels better than ever as he gets ready for round one of the world championship this weekend.
Covington on… his off-season
I had some time back home California and also Alabama, I have been playing a lot of music, spending some time in Nashville with my dad and seeing family. It’s actually been nice to have a little break off the bike. I’m surprised to be back on the bike this quick (after injury), it’s been really good.
Riding for team USA
To ride for the US was a huge honour for me. You always see growing up the three top Americans getting picked to go overseas to race the GP guys, it was something special for me.
Everything was going great the few weeks I had to prepare on the 450, on the Saturday I believe I was running fourth or fifth just came through a corner, didn’t even crash, just stuck my leg out and twisted my knee and that was it, pretty much. I had done the same thing to my other knee so I knew how it felt. I still finished the race in seventh on Saturday. There wasn’t much we could do about it, we kept it quiet and did the best we could on Sunday.
Working on getting the knee 100%
I haven’t had to work with Dr Claes too much! But I had lot of experience with knee surgeries and this was the best one by far, everything has healed up so quickly and the knee feels really strong. We were surprised to get back on the bike about a month ago like we did.
Straight after surgery I flew back to California and worked with a physical therapist there who I have worked with for a long time. I was pretty much just hanging out with in the gym every day – I didn’t have much else to do. That played a huge part just getting on the therapy straight away. As it started getting better and I could do more stuff in the gym, I flew back over to Belgium and went to work in the gym with Joel. I think I am really lucky that everything healed as well as it did.
On being ready for the start of the GP season in Argentina
I think I am ready, just in the last weeks I have started feeling really comfortable on the new bike, also in myself. Even though it was a bit of a bummer to be off the bike for suc a long amount of time, I think it gave us the opportunity to focus on other parts of my fitness in the gym. I honestly feel in better shape than I did last season, I’m happy with everything turned out. It’s such a long season, I have plenty of time to build into it.
On staying in GPs and not going back to the USA
The opportunity came up (with Husky) it’s not a easy decision. I still think about it all the time, but I have loved being with the team the last two years. It was hard to leave but at the same time it’s always good to go home.
