Marquez on personal turmoil of surgery: “You resist throwing in the towel”
The eight-time world champion missed six races of the 2022 MotoGP season to go under the knife for the fourth time.
His most serious surgery to date on his troublesome arm was conducted in the USA, and rotated his arm bone which was causing him so much agony while riding.
Marquez revealed how he overcame this awful period: "You mature quite a lot when things are difficult.
“And when there is an injury, more than in the last few months, it has been in the last few years when things haven't gone well, that's when you see that you have to reinvent yourself or resist throwing the towel.
“That’s when you become more mature and gain more experience. During that time, I came to live in Madrid and I have had quite a few changes in my life because the life of anyone, not just an athlete, evolves.
“As a motorbike racer I became a professional at the age of 15 and at the age of 20 I reached the MotoGP World Championship.
“Over the years you evolve and maybe you have a different mentality in your twenties than you do in your thirties, like any other person.
“And that's where you have to take the right steps and, above all, prioritise. In this case my priority is the same as when I entered the World Championship. It's a sport, it's a competition and the results are what really count.”
Marquez is from Cervera, near Barcelona, but uprooted his personal life to maximise his recovery from his horrible fitness issues.
“I decided to move to Madrid for two main reasons,” he said. “One is because I had my third operation in Madrid. Now not so much, but when the arm was too bad to keep racing and we saw that the bone had rotated, I had a lot of check-ups and I tried to control a lot what was happening to avoid tendinitis, so I was coming back quite a lot.
“Then also because, as I went into a two-year loop with the injury at home, I felt like making a change.
“My lifestyle hasn't changed at all because I'm not in the city either, but I'm fine in the suburbs about cycling, motorcycle and gym training.
“I've been doing well so far and I wasn't going to change anything. The lifestyle has to be the same, but I realise that I save time. I save hours on the train, above all I also save time with events and commitments, but the most important thing is that in my profession, in my daily life, in my training, it is not affecting me at all.
“Obviously, from time to time, at weekends or even during the week, I have been able to go out for dinner or a drink. I even went to see Rafa Nadal, which I had never done before, but now that he's half an hour away, you come and disconnect a bit and it's good because in the end it's not twenty-four hours a day thinking about racing at one hundred percent.
“Ok, you have to be at your best, but you can't be training twenty-four hours a day. There are rest days when the mind has to switch off and this is also good for me. The important thing is to feel happy.
“If you feel happy in your personal life, your professional life will go better and then you get on that wheel in which, if your professional life goes well, your personal life goes better and you have a positive mind.”
Repsol Honda rider Marquez has competed in the most recent three MotoGP races as his recovery continues.
He particularly shone in Japan where he qualified in pole position then finished fourth, overtaking Miguel Oliveira on the last lap, to silence critics who thought his endurance would suffer.
Marquez sits 13th in the 2022 MotoGP standings but, despite missing six races, is the highest placed Honda rider underlining a nightmare season for the team.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
