Marc Goos' hip injury won't go away. In late November, the Dutchman was under the knife again and not again faces many months of recovery. "But I am confident that it will be fine," he tells Wielerflits.

In 2014, Goos broke his hip when he crashed in the Tour of Switzerland. Later, doctors discovered that a blood vessel was damaged. "That specific blood vessel supplies my femoral head with nutrients," Goos explains. "And the supply was gone. So a piece of bone at the femoral head died. First they have to try to repair it with stem cell transplantation. Therefore I missed out on the 2015 season because it takes a long time before they can draw any conclusion whether transplantation helps or not. Unfortunately, it didn't not work and there was only one option left: an operation in which they replace the femoral head by an artificial bone. They have put a a kind of shell over the femoral head. It's partly an artificial hip so to speak."

As a result, Goos is currently still using one crutch. "I am now recovering from this operation. All in all it's pretty good, but because of this I fully focused on my recovery. Every day I am training with the physiotherapist and undergo treatment. At this moment, I can not say whether I can ever return to the highest level. It's still too early in my recovery. Of course I hope to be back on the bike as soon as possible. Therefore, I was looking for a very good hip specialist for this whole issue. He is among the best in the world. He is very positive about how the operation has gone and how it will work out. He sees a lot of possibilities so I am still confident."

However, it is still uncertain whether Goos will succeed. The rider from Breda was missing from the list of LottoNL-Jumbo riders on the UCI website but has now been added. The team has revealed that the medical staff has concluded that sport is not possible for Goos at the moment. He is still under contract with the WorldTour team but is not used as a rider. "Right now I'm still a rider," the climber says. "I still live like a professional athlete and am actually more motivated than ever to get back to racing again soon. But unfortunately, I cannot rush anything."

"I have to look at it step by step", he adds. "This injury is obviously no small issue. It will take a few months before I know if it will be possible to race again. In any case, I will miss out on the first few months. But again I have to look at it step by step at the moment. In a few months, I hope to have more clarity, but now I can not say anything with certainty. If it seems that I can not race this season, I have the feeling that 'Okay, it's not possible anymore .It does not work with the hip.' Then it is probably end of story. Because this is the last chance, that's obvious."

Goos has not given up hope yet though there is a chance that he will have been out of racing for two months in June. "I hope to race again as soon as possible. I am working hard every day. It is logical that it takes too much time, in my opinion. I do not know what I would do otherwise. I do not even think about it. I have been away from cycling for so long time that I'm even more motivated to return and race. I cannot really think about other things."