'The noise of cars made me uncomfortable' - Tour de France stage winner on recovery after being hit by a car driver

Lennard Kämna has said that he initially felt "uncomfortable" when being overtaken by vehicles during his return to training after making his comeback from injuries caused by being struck by a car driver in Tenerife last April.

The 28-year-old German was in hospital for two months after the incident and says he was left with multiple broken bones. He moved to Lidl-Trek in the off-season from Red-Bull-Bora Hansgrohe and competed for the first time since the collision at the Volta a Catalunya last week.

In a recent interview with The Cycling Podcast, Kämna described feeling anxious on his return to training on the roads and says being hit by the driver has left him with a heightened awareness of the unpredictability of traffic and other road users.

"For the first one or two weeks, the noise of a lot of cars made me uncomfortable," he said. "The first time I went out it felt super natural, I was just a bit more cautious that’s for sure and I’d say now I feel completely normal in traffic again.

"But for sure I have a bigger eye on cars now that are coming from the front or coming out of somewhere. I always have a feeling that I’m looking a lot more now right and left at what they’re doing, have they seen me, have they not seen me."

“In the end it was a super lucky outcome that I’m able to sit here and that I’m able to do pro sport again, it’s just incredible," he added.

Kämna explained that he has no memory of the collision and that waking up in hospital, where he underwent surgery, was a major shock at the time.

"I didn’t know why I was in the hospital," he said. "All of a sudden I was there and it took me a really long time to understand what had happened and really realise that it was not a dream or whatever, it was reality. I think I broke 11 or 12 bones in the end. I broke seven or eight ribs, my shoulder blade, my scapula, one bone in my face and that was basically it.

"I spent four weeks in a hospital in Tenerife and then another four weeks in a hospital in Hamburg in Germany. It was not really a nice time, that’s for sure. I had never been overnight in a hospital before so everything was new to me. I was just hoping to get out of there as quickly as I could."

The 28-year-old Wedel native said that he had to rely on the testimonies of witnesses to piece together what exactly happened in Tenerife in the build up to the driver hitting him.

"I don’t have any memories [of the crash] at all," he explained. "I was descending and then a car came up and just overlooked me and went into a parking spot or a road, I actually don’t know and I also don’t know where exactly it happened. The car then went in front of me and I hit it.

"I always say how long does it take for a car to cross a road, maybe one or two seconds, so this is also the time I had to do something or not. It’s basically no time at all. When I think about it there was not a lot I could have done, I was just unlucky."

Kämna is set to continue his comeback at the Tour of the Alps in April, a race which has previously provided him with success including two stage wins in 2022 and 2023.