Ligament damage for Nakagami

Takaaki Nakagami escaped serious injury when he was taken down by Valentino Rossi in the Dutch TT, but the Japanese has revealed he will be riding with ankle ligament damage at this weekend's Sachsenring round.

The LCR Honda rider will wear a bigger left boot to accommodate the injury and knows it will be a painful weekend, but has the summer break to look forward to after Sunday's race.

“I’m not in the best condition, but I’m lucky because it was a really nasty crash," said Nakagami, who was collected by Rossi when the Italian lost the front while attempting to pass.

"It was such a fast crash, I saw the video and I understand that people were really worried about my condition as it looked really bad.

"But I’m ok, I’ve got no serious injuries, no broken bones, so that’s a good thing, but I still have a lot of pain all over my body because of the impact on the gravel and the crash pads. But I’m here and I’m ready to jump on the bike which is good.

"I have some ligament damage - to my left ankle - and my flexibility is really bad, but after tomorrow it’s only three days until the summer break, so we just need to get through these three days.

"Then I’ll have time to rest and recover for the second part of the season.”

Team-mate Cal Crutchlow has also sustained ligament damage, to his knee, while training on a bicycle yesterday...