Procycling’s Scouting Report: Jelle Lugten

Jelle Lugten is lucky to be alive, let alone hunting a professional contract. He was hit head-on by a car after a civilian driver ignored marshals and drove onto the route of the French amateur race GP de Rocheville in February 2010. Lugten was in a coma for 11 days and suffered three spinal fractures, a broken skull and life-threatening brain injuries. By the time he left hospital, the 183cm rider weighed 46kg – over 20kg less than normal.

He spent 2010 rehabilitating and by 2011 was racing again for his top French amateur club, AVC Aix-en-Provence. He fought for breath in the early races, hindered by an internal titanium frame screwed into his vertebrae and scar tissue caused by the accident and surgery. The frame was taken out in September 2011 and by December, he reported he was “totally back to normal”. He says: “I’ve had almost two years off but I was mountain biking in a forest in the Netherlands and I felt totally fine – it was the first time since the accident that I could ask my body to give its all again.”

All of which means 2012 will be the year 21-year-old tries to reclaim the form he had when he initially joined AVC-Aix as an 18-year-old. Lugten is a stage racer and, he says, the more mountainous the better. A particular target will be the Giro della Valle d’Aosta where he finished 40th in 2011 with the titanium frame still in his back.

He says: “Generally, I find I get better the longer a race goes on. My goals are very clear. This year, I want to race and then look for a professional contract. The accident and the recovery were a chapter in my life that’s now finished. So I want to move on.”

At the time of the accident he was close to Cofidis and other professional teams were keeping a keen eye on him. When Paris-Nice came close in March 2011, he talked to some team staff who knew his story and they told him they were watching him, Lugten says.

“I’m confident now and it’s now up to me to get results,” he adds. Lugten is clearly a fighter. He hopes 2012 will be the year his body can match his mental strength.

Procycling Magazine - February 2012