Following his horrific crash that saw him miss the Giro d'Italia, Chris Horner is finally ready to make his return to racing. The American will line up at the Tour of Slovenia next week and will later decide with his team whether he is fit enough to do the Tour de France.

When he signed a contract with Lampre-Merida, Rui Costa was set to be the undisputed leader of the Italian team at the Tour de France. However, a change of circumstances may now force the world champion to share the captaincy role with Vuelta champion Chris Horner.

Horner was a late signing for the team and was originally scheduled to do the Giro d'Italia before concentrating on his title defence in the Vuelta. However, the American was hit by a car in April and suffered a punctured lung in the accident along with broken ribs and a cut to his head, ruling him it of of the Italian grand tour.

Horner has now recovered from his injuries and will make his return to racing in the Tour of Slovenia next week. Depending on the outcome of that race, he will decide whether to do the Tour but his team manager Brent Copeland has made it clear that he wants the American to focus on the GC if he makes it to the start of the world's biggest race.

"In April I was training with enthusiasm, preparing the approach to Giro d'Italia," Horner said. "Unfortunately, I had to face this terrible accident that prevented me from being at the start of the corsa rosa and forced me into a period of inactivity.

"The crash in April was of course very difficult and scary, but I am grateful that it was not more severe. It could have easily been career or life threatening.

"It was hard for me to stop and to renounce participating in a top race for which I was training really hard for with passion and enthusiasm. The will to recover and to get back on the bike again gave me the power to make my comeback to racing.

"I have I trained well in the recent few weeks, after which I recovered completely from the punctured lung. I flew back to Italy from USA towards the the end of May.

"The Tour de Slovénie is obviously an important appointment for me because I'll be able to get some interesting feedback on my condition."

"At the end of the race, I'll evaluate with the team management and the technical staff about the possible participation in Tour de France."

Lampre-Merida for Tour de Slovénie: 

Ulissi Diego Ulissi, Jan Polanc, Valerio Conti, Luca Dodi, Manuele Mori, Andrea Palini, Luca Wackermann, Gang Xu and Chris Horner.