The rough road
Just after 8am on a chilly Thursday morning in late May, Ian Boswell clips into his pedals and accelerates out of the driveway of the isolated farmhouse he shares with his wife and dog in rural Vermont, USA. The early-morning drizzle has subsided and the sun is starting to peek through the low-hanging clouds. More than 6,000km away, some of Boswell’s friends and former teammates are working their way across 231km heading for the finish line in Stradella, Italy during the longest stage in the 2021 Giro d’Italia, but he doesn’t feel part of that world anymore.
‘Watching them on TV, they’re these sporting icons,’ he says. ‘It’s strange.’
More than two years have passed since the crash in an early-season race in Italy that ended his career. Given the severity of his injuries he knows he is lucky to be alive, but he is still fighting to blaze a new path. Some of the worst concussion symptoms faded by the end of the first year after his fall, but he still struggles with some basic cognitive tasks, and out riding he has to focus harder
