Vermeulen undergoes successful knee operation

Chris Vermeulen (Kawasaki Racing Team) is now recovering from an extensive reconstruction operation on his long-term right knee injury. Chris is out of hospital and resting in Barcelona, where he hopes to have his stitches out this coming Friday, and start his road to recovery, quite soon.

Said Chris, "The operation lasted for two and a half hours but it was supposed to be shorter than that. They found more damage in there than they thought they would after looking at the scans. But they went in there and fixed it, it is all reconstructed now and on Friday I should get my stitches out. I am not allowed to bend it or put any weight on it for three weeks."

Vermeulen took this seemingly drastic action to rebuild his knee, as it was not healing up fast enough to allow him to race at full pace. With a new bike to ride in 2011 he opted to take the necessary steps to be fully fit for next season by stopping his 2010 season early. "The idea was to make sure the healing process would be permanent, so that's why we stopped and fixed everything that was wrong in there," said Chris. "The physiotherapy should be quite hard and intense when it starts, but hopefully I will have a knee that will be as good as it was before the crash."