Fabio Jakobsen says latest facial surgery was successful

The former Dutch champion is still recovering after his crash at the Tour of Poland last year

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Fabio Jakobsen has revealed that his latest facial surgery was successful and that he hopes to return to training again after a week of rest.

Jakobsen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) has had surgery to have implants placed into his jaw along with more reconstruction on his scars around his mouth, posting on Instagram to let his fans known how he's doing.

The 24-year-old said: "The coming days look like this.... a lot of cooling (and liquid food).

"Yesterday I had another operation that went well. The surgeons drilled implants in my upper and lower jaw and reconstructed the scars in my mouth.

"For now a week of rest and let the body do it’s healing. Hopefully next week I can restart training again and build up towards races!"

A photo posted by on

The former Dutch national champion suffered his career-threatening injuries at the Tour of Poland in August last year, when he was pushed into the race barriers by Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma).

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Groenewegen was handed a nine-month ban after the crash and he will return to racing for Jumbo-Visma at the Tour of Hungary later in the year.

The sprint finish in Katowice, where the crash took place, had been criticised previously due to it being slightly downhill and extremely fast with riders previously exceeding 80kph.

Jakobsen has had to have multiple surgeries and was also put into a coma after the crash. His long list of serious injuries included a skull fracture, torn palate, brain contusion, broken nose, loss of part of both his upper and lower jaw as well as 10 teeth.

He doesn't have any races down on his schedule yet as he and the team are just working towards getting him back to full fitness.

Jakobsen already has 18 wins to his name including three wins at the Volta ao Algarve, Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and the Grote Prijs Jean-Pierre Monseré.

Earlier this year, Jakobsen was on a training camp with some of his Deceuninck - Quick-Step team-mates including Tour de France points jersey winners, Sam Bennett and Mark Cavendish, with Cavendish saying how inspiring the Dutchman is to him.

Speaking at a press conference at the team training camp, Jakobsen said: "I'd like to give you a date - but the first date I can give you is February when I have my next surgery.

"I have to see how that one goes. If it goes well, then maybe one or two months after I can race again.

"Right now, I'm riding my bike again. I'm doing training rides with the guys here. Not all the rides and sometimes I take a shortcut to the hotel but the feeling on the bike is okay."

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Tim Bonville-Ginn

Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!


I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.


It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.


After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.


When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.


My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.