Lotto-Soudal's Stig Broeckx has continued his extraordinary road to recovery, posting a picture of himself riding a bike two years on from a crash-induced coma that doctors feared he would never come out of.
On Sunday, the 28-year-old posted a series of photos to his Instagram account of him riding a mountain bike. The Belgian was able to ride unsupported and was in high spirits as he returned to the sport that was once his profession.
Broeckx sustained serious head injuries in a crash on Stage 3 at the 2016 Tour of Belgium after being hit by a race motorbike. The crash saw Broeckx sustain a major brain trauma and bleeding on the brain.
Subsequently, the rider was put in a coma with doctors initially fearing he would either remain in the coma or be in a vegetative state.
However, by December of 2016, Broeckx had come out of the coma, recovering enough to regain speech, memory and movement.
A year on from the crash, Broeckx was filmed using a stationary bike, cycling in 30-minute spells, although it was reported that he would often go over his allotted time. By December 2017, Broeckx had then also begun walking as part of his physiotherapy.
Broeckx's crash involving the race motorbike came as part of a series of incidents involving race vehicles and the peloton.
Before the crash at the 2016 Tour of Belgium, Broeckx had only just returned from a fractured collarbone that was sustained after being hit by a race motorbike at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in February of that year.
Between these two incidents, the tragic death of Antoine Demoitie occurred at Gent-Wevelgem with the young Belgian suffering a fatal collision with a race official's motorbike.
These incidents led to the UCI taking action by introducing a restriction on the number of race vehicles allowed in the peloton and their accessibility during the race.