It's hard to ride when you are a lazy ass and don't have any clean shorts to wear. Thus, today becomes an unintended rest day.
Weight: 154 Pulse: 63

News Item of the Day: World cyclocross champion Bart Wellens managed to finish tenth behind winner Sven Nys at yesterday's Milan round of the cyclocross world cup despite still being bothered by the thumb injury he sustained at the Superprestige race in Gieten, Netherlands on November 28. Before the race, Wellens told sportwereld.be that his doctors had advised him to wear a cast for four weeks to allow the torn ligament to heal.

Wellens' thumb swelled again after Sunday's Wetzikon World Cup. "For the first few days after Gieten... the treatment went well," said Wellens. "But I went to Wetzikon rather too optimistically, thinking it would go all right." It wasn't, as Wellens discovered, "the digit is still quite sensitive."

Since then, Wellens has been using an appliance that compresses the injury to reduce the swelling and was expecting to need an injection in the injury to ride in Milan. "It's impossible to ride with a brace," he said.

Viewpoint: It's looking more and more like a lost year for Wellens. There's still time to salvage the season in the last month and at Worlds but it is looking doubtful.