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!"
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."
