Inline skater and speed skater Jason Suttels has been seriously injured in a traffic accident and is in intensive care, his team Powerslide confirmed on Tuesday.
Suttels, who is 24, was riding his motorcycle on Friday last, when the accident occurred. He sustained severe facial injuries, a broken hip, and a broken wrist.
Immediately after the accident, he experienced difficulty seeing due to bleeding, according to teammate Bart Swings, who informed Powerslide director Matthias Knoll, currently abroad.
A surgery performed on Sunday was successful, and the team is hopeful that Suttels will leave intensive care in the coming days.
Suttels had recently recovered from a broken ankle that had prematurely ended his Olympic skating season. He had sustained the earlier injury during a mass start event in the Netherlands in September.
Just two weeks ago, he made his comeback as an inline skater at the international World Skate marathon in Shanghai.
In 2022, Suttels became world champion in the ten-kilometre points race and secured multiple European titles in inline skating.
In 2023, he won the prestigious inline skating marathon in Berlin.
