physical and mental ailments, what happens – Corriere.it

A game of massacre: 14 falls in 2023, with only five appearances during the race weekends, including that of Assen, which closed yesterday morning with the renunciation of competing in the GP. Marc Marquez restores the expression of a diabolical and perky Joker for interviews, but his mask does not correspond to it at all. The torments are now dominant: I suffer a lot. I arrived in Holland after a tiring weekend at the Sachsenring and it got worse and worse, the fractured rib hurts. the worst moment of my career.

A legendary career, interrupted in July 2020 in Jerez. Fractured right humerus, first stage of a via crucis, initiated by four operations. Since then: ambitious returns and scary flights. The class that had yielded 8 world titles, 6 in MotoGP alone, involved in one destructive heat; the Honda, made for him, perhaps only for him, an ungovernable beast. Gambles paid punctually on the track. Broken bones. Not only. Diplopia, a disorder that involves a doubling of images, found after an accident with a motocross bike in training, diagnosed again in Malaysia, 2022. A difficult-to-treat malaise that Marquez claims he has overcome: It would be impossible to drive: if you see double, you won’t you can do it.

Rather, it is we who observe a double image: an amazing champion, hated by Valentino for the rudeness that cost Rossi the 2015 title, capable of winning hands over and over again; a thirty-year-old in the frantic search for his gold, with the fear of having lost his touch, the dream: to beat the record of 9 titles held by Vale, settling in a firmament of its own, after the Doctor had cleared the way. This is the penalty, aggravated by a technical impotence, by a battered physique. While a group of young and gifted riders and a patrol of very fast Ducatis have changed the landscape and perspectives.

To the point of transforming the master of the scene into a dangerous outsider for himself and for those who run against him. Bagnaia doesn’t think of Marquez as an antagonist. You have to contend with Bezzecchi or Martin, all people now used to doing without Marc. Some steady lovers await rebirth, perhaps with another bike, even if the bond with Honda will expire at the end of 2024. With the suspicion that the marks on the body correspond to some bruises on the soul. Marquez pursues a part of himself that no longer resembles him. And his run-up overwhelms him, unseats him. He adds pain to an inconsolable pain.