James Toseland in ‘excruciating pain’ again over wrist op complication

Almost a decade after suffering the wrist injury that ended his racing career, James Toseland reveals a recent op complication has left him in pain again

James Toseland

Double WorldSBK Champion James Toseland has revealed he is in as much pain as he felt back in 2011 when a wrist injury ended his racing career after suffering complications from a recent surgery to it.

The Briton, who won the 2004 and 2007 WorldSBK titles for Ducati and Honda respectively, has spent almost a decade coping with a lack of movement in his wrist, the ongoing consequence of a crash he suffered at Motorland Aragon that forced him to hang up his helmet for good.

Earlier this month, Toseland underwent a complex two-day surgery on the wrist in the hope it’d allow him to regain full movement in it once again.

However, Toseland has revealed the troublesome injury has flared up again after scar tissue developed around the area of the procedure, describing the pain as bad as when he first broke it.

“It’s been a really frustrating time, unfortunately a capsule of scar tissue has grown around the area of the procedure and left me with no movement again,” he revealed on his Twitter account.

“The pain is as though I have just broken it yesterday, it’s excruciating unfortunately, so I’m back in the hospital again with Mark Hayton to have a procedure called manipulation where I believe he will try and force it through the movement it is supposed to have and we will see if that correct things.”

Toseland goes on to say if the new procedure doesn’t work he’ll need to have a plate inserted that would cure the pain but prevent him from getting back to full strength.

“Fingers crossed, [but] if this doesn’t work I think my only option is to have a full fuse, which is a plate in it and locking it out, which would rectify the pain but I won’t be able to move my wrist which is not really what I want.”

Toseland returned to WorldSBK after two seasons racing in MotoGP, spending a year with Yamaha before switching to the BMW Italia team for 2011. However, the accident in Spain would end his career there and then.

After spending several years focusing on his eponymous band, Toseland will return to the WorldSBK paddock in 2020 as team manager for the WRP Wepol Racing WorldSSP team, which will enter British rider Danny Webb on a Yamaha R6.