Alex Zanardi returned to intensive care
Former F1 driver and Paralympic gold medallist Alex Zanardi has been moved back to intensive care in hospital just days after being transferred to a specialist recovery unit.
The Italian, 53, suffered serious injuries in a collision with a truck while training on a handbike on 19 June.
After three operations at Siena hospital, he was placed in an induced coma but was having his sedation gradually decreased, resulting in enough of an improvement to allow a move to a specialist recovery centre on Tuesday.
However, a deterioration in his condition since then has forced Zanardi to return to hospital and intensive care, with doctors describing his condition as ‘unstable’.
He is now being cared for at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital.
In motorsport terms, Zanardi is best-known for his stints with Lotus and Williams in F1, while he also competed with Jordan and Minardi, though he has enjoyed the majority of his success on American shores, clinching the CART open-wheel titles in 1997 and 1998.
However, a horrific accident while competing in a CART race in Germany in 2001 resulted in serious injuries and the decision to amputated both of his legs.
Undeterred, Zanardi returned to motorsport and proceeded to carve out a race-winning career in the World Touring Car Championship and in Sportscars,
He’d go on to dovetailing his motorsport commitments by taking up Para-cycling with immense success. To date he has achieved six Olympic medals for Italy – four of them gold – at London 2012 and Rio 2016, while he has 12 World Championship gold medals to his name in time trial and road relay events.
