Joan Mir reveals battle with vision problems ahead of Sepang MotoGP return
Joan Mir has opened up on why he was absent from recent MotoGP rounds
One-time MotoGP world champion Joan Mir says he suffered from vision problems and “extreme” fatigue, which prompted his lengthy layoff after the San Marino Grand Prix.
The Honda rider complained of low energy during the Misano weekend in September before ultimately missing the next four races.
Little information has been available on Mir’s condition until now, as he stages his comeback at this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
“There were quite a lot of question marks”
Speaking on Thursday at Sepang, Mir said he was suffering from vision problems and extreme fatigue.
And initially, no treatment options were working until MotoGP medical chief Dr. Angel Charte stepped in.
“It was a difficult period with some question marks inside of me because, simply, it was a time I needed to stop due to problems with vision and tiredness, but quite extreme,” he told the official MotoGP website.
“It looks like day by day I was not able to recover until we did a treatment with Dr. Charte and I could see immediately that I was improving.
“And also we made a lot of work at home to try to do so. I’m so happy to be back, because as you can imagine there were quite a lot of question marks inside of me in that time about what will happen.
“But to really be able to answer this question being here is such an important thing.”
“It was hard to understand recovery timings”
Mir began riding bikes again last week as he upped his preparations for his racing return in Malaysia.
But he admits it was tough to understand when the right time to come back was.
“Yes, because it was very, very strange. It was not like when you break a bone and you know, more or less, the time to recover,” he said.
“And this time, when you have vision problems and this fatigue, it was honestly very hard to understand the timings.
“When? That is the first question when we ask ourselves when we have an injury.
“And in this case it was not like that. It was more about time, patience and being 100% sure to go back.
“And then tomorrow we will see how I feel. I still have some question marks, but I feel good. This is the most important thing.”
