Juri Hollmann speaks for the first time about Giro crash: “Honestly, it’s a miracle I survived”

In the documentary published by Zabel—titled The Dark Side of Cycling—Hollmann now explains in detail, for the first time, what he went through. “I hit a traffic sign at 70 kilometres per hour. The doctors suspect my femur struck the sign, forcing it into my pelvis and causing a complicated fracture,” he says in the film.

Hollmann was flown by private jet to the specialist hospital in Herentals and underwent surgery the next day for his badly deformed arm. He then suffered a pulmonary embolism and had to be transferred urgently to Antwerp. “Blood clots completely blocked my lungs. It was very close,” Hollmann tells Zabel. “Honestly: it’s a miracle I survived.”

Only after the embolism was resolved could Hollmann’s shattered pelvis be operated on. With four plates and 24 screws inserted, he spent another five weeks in Antwerp before being moved to Berlin, where he continued rehabilitation for eight weeks in a clinic. In total, he was in a wheelchair for three months.

At the moment, Hollmann is limited to just two hours of riding per day due to nerve damage, but he is still hoping for a return to racing. “But even if I recover fully and still can’t come back, I’ll still be happy,” said the rider from Cologne.