A year ago, Marc Marquez didn’t hide his disappointment, resulting from the complications of a new episode of diplopia that emerged during the winter break. This, added to the injury to his right arm, had led him to evaluate the possibility of ending his career. The eye problem had been the coup de grâce after two years of suffering from a fractured right arm sustained in the crash of the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix and the consequent operations.
A pain he had kept inside until now. His three victories in 2021 had led many to believe that the Catalan had made a definitive recovery, but in reality he was experiencing a very complicated period: “I was winning and I started crying”, revealed the eight-time world champion at the Spanish edition by GQ. “When I won I always thought about partying, having fun with the people I love. Actually the opposite thing occurred to me, because of the pain, that pain in my arm that made me suffer constantly and that I could not forget”.
However, at the start of the 2022 season the pain was somewhat reduced and the worst seemed to be over. Recovered from diplopia and more focused on physical preparation, he took part in the winter tests. Reassured by his performance on the track but disheartened by a totally modified RC213V, he aimed to stay ahead, but 2022 proved to be another year added to the previous ones, also full of doubts and pain.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
A new episode of diplopia conditioned the Spaniard after a bad crash in the Indonesian Grand Prix, forcing him to miss the next race before returning to the track in Austin. However, his incredible comeback on the American track was only the tip of the iceberg. “There came a moment when the pain overcame the passion and I thought ‘either I’ll fix everything or it’s not worth continuing to race’, because I was losing a lot of quality of life. Not only did I accumulate failures after failures, but the pain was constant and I was also changing my character, I didn’t even smile anymore”.
Unfortunately, when the championship arrived in Europe, he realized it couldn’t continue like this: “I honestly don’t even know how I managed to win three races in 2021, I can’t explain how I was able to end the season in the top five and finishing fourth at the start of 2022 in Jerez, because I wasn’t thinking about the competition or the physique”.
“There was a moment in the season, when the Portimao and Jerez grands prix arrived, where I disconnected my brain and told myself I couldn’t go on like this. It was at that moment when, just before Portimao, I went to see my doctors in Madrid and I told them ‘something is going on with my arm, because I’m taking a step backwards’”. At that moment a new diagnosis was made and a fourth operation was scheduled, the “last chance” one, with the result that we all know. After a three-month absence, Marquez returned to the podium at the end of the season and now aims to return to the title fight in the 2023 MotoGP season.
In retrospect, his crash at Jerez in July 2020 had much bigger consequences than anyone expected, and the Spaniard has admitted on several occasions since then that he regrets being in a hurry to get back to racing. However, in his eyes this is a reflection of a winning mentality that has taken him to the top of the world. “What happened in Jerez was because of my mentality and my ambition, but everything I achieved from 2013 to 2020 was also because of this mentality and this ambition. So if you look at the ten years as a whole, the balance is positive”.
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