Bervoets undergoes surgery

On Friday June 1st 2001 Yamaha Motocross Team rider Marnicq Bervoets underwent a successful operation on his forearms to cure the ‘arm pump’ problems that he has encountered during the first part of the 2001 season. Although Marnicq has scored four podiums in the last six races and currently holds third place in the 500 World Championship standings, his results have been negatively affected by the persistent problems with his arms.

Arm pump is a well-know problem in motocross and is caused when the muscles in the forearm swell up and the arms stiffen, resulting in a loss of strength. The symptom is not an indication of a lack of fitness; on the contrary, it happens when the muscles become too large and start to suffer from lack of nutritional blood flow.

Doctor Claes, a Belgian specialist in this field, advised Marnicq to use the coming five weeks of down-time following round six at Francorchamps, Belgium, to have the operation to ease the problem, which cannot be helped by rest alone. It is hoped that Marnicq will have recovered sufficiently to rejoin the second half of the season which kicks off again on July 1 in Uddevalla, Sweden.

Bervoets confirmed that the surgery has been successful; “This is the second time that I have had an operation on my forearm muscles, the problem this time was that the scar tissue of the first operation obstructed the muscles and caused blood starvation. I am lucky that there is such a long break in the season, within three weeks I will be back training on the bike which should give me enough time to be fit for Sweden.”