After the chequered flag, the Repsol Honda star admitteꦡd he wouldn’t even have attended the Italian event had doctors given their surgery verdict prior to the weekend.

Instead, the call from America came between the Friday practice sessionsꦇ, leaving Marqu♏ez in something of a dilemma.

Should he 🥀continue, knowing any further damage to the arm coul🌞d force the operation to be postponed, possibly indefinitely, or play it safe by withdrawing from the event?

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• Marc Marquez 🅘to step back from MotoGP and un꧅dergo a fourth arm operation

The eight-time world champion chose to ride on, a decision൲ that nearly backfired when he🃏 suffered a nasty highside on a damp track in qualifying, a few hours before making his operation plans public.

Fortunately, Marquez’s final MotoGP race for at leas💮t the next few months passed without incident൲.

The Spaniard rose from eleventh to ninth in the early laps, briefly dropped to ಞa low of twelfth in the middle stages, then recovered to take tenth from fading pole starter Fabio di Giannantonio.

“Of course, it was a very demanding weekend,” Marquez said. “Not only from the physical side, where every weekend I suffer a lot, but especially the mental side. It was very difficul♑t to keep concentration.

“I received the news [about the operation] on Friday, but if I received that⭕ news on a Wednesday or Thursday, I would not race here. But I was here, Honda allowed me to choose and I decide to continue the 𓂃weekend.

“I said, ‘Okay, I will continue racing. I will take a risk, because you're ridiไng 350 ks per hour. But I will work for [Honda and the team] to give my input for the future.

“It was a difficult race. I enjoyed 6-7 laps in the beginning, I did a great start and I saw the front group. And I was able to ride more or less in the same pace. But then I had one warning and I gave up, because already I star🎶ted to get arm pump, with a lot of pain and a lack of power.

“Today it was important not to make crazy things. In the end I didn’t try t⭕o attack Oliveira, just finished t๊he race.”

Marquez: ‘Riding like this, I cannot continue’

Fully aware that putting his right arm through yet another major surgery๊ isn’t to be taken lightly, Marquez explained that his ongoing problems combined with the clear verdic🍌t of the American doctors ultimately meant it had been an ‘easy decision’.

Indeed, Marquez’s biggest fear had been that the Mayo Clinic experts in ‘humeral osteotomy’, a procedꦍure to improve arm mobility by realigning the bone, might have been unsure if surgery would make a difference.

“It’s an 🐽operation and everything can happen. You never know. But it’s the correct decision because riding like this, I cannot continue,” Marquez said.

“Of c🙈ourse you are always worried ab🃏out a fourth operation in the same arm. It’s not easy. But when they called me on Friday, gave me the results and told me all the information. I breathed [a sigh of relief].

“Because there was the possibility to get the results and they might say ‘okay, the ro🏅tation is not so big, up to you…’ Then, woah, 𒀰it’s a big decision.

“But they called me and said straight away: ‘Come next week. We don't know how you a𒐪re doing what you🎀 are doing now. But this rotation is too big. And you must stop now’.

“So for me it was an easy decision. Friday was൩ one of the best days of the year…

“Having the operation is the correct decision for my future, but it’s not like I’ll have the operation and [automatically]𒐪 win again. No. The target of the operation is to try to enjoy riding again and have a normal life again. Forget the painkillers and all these things. This is the target of the operation.

“Then if you have all these ൩things, and you enjoy it again, the possibilities of good results will increase.”

Marc Marquez: ‘I hope my life will change’

Marquez, contracted to Honda until the end of 2024, revealed that without the operation h𓆉e would be unlikely to remain in MotoGP beyond that date.

“My daily life is affected a lot [at the moment꧑],” Marquez added. “Before I was always training a lot at home with motorbikes, with motocross, with road bikes, any kind of bikes.

“But now my norꦅmal life is; come back after a race, stay 2-3 days at home, relax because I cannot do anything, just to do some leg work, some cycling, and then start to train again. P𒁃hysio, physio, painkillers.

“I said to my doctors and my people, 'riding like this, I will do one more year, two more years. No more'. Because I'm not enjoying and I'm suffering aꦚ lot.

“But having 🐓this ope🍃ration, I hope my life will change. The last two years were not easy.”

Marquez said Honda fully supported his decision:✤ “I feel a very big respect, from Honda to myself. I said to them, 'the situation is this, if y✤ou want I can continue riding like this, finishing between 5th-10th, and maybe the podium in some races'.

“They sai🍰d to me, 'your life is more important. Just take care about you. And we will wait'.”

Marquez, who will fly to the US on Tuesday, s♍aid the operation iꦫs expected to last around two hours, “but you never know in an operation”.

After initial post-surgery care at theꦍ Mayo facility in Rochester, Minnesota, Marquez will return home to Madrid to start rehabilitation with the trusted medical crew that solved the earlier infection in his arm, during his last operation in December 2020.

The initial arm-breaking accident occurred in the closing stages of the 2020 MotoGP s✨eason-opener at Jerez, Marquez highsiding and being hit by his bike after producing a stunning charge through the field following an early trip through the gravel.

The first surgery saw a titanium plate fitted to the broken bone, but the p🧔late failed after an attempted return to MotoGP action the following weekend.

A second operation was needed to replace the broken plate, but the bone didn't heal, with an infection later diagnosed during the sub🌊sequen💞t December surgery.

Marquez was finally cleared to return to MotoGP in April 2021🌺 but, alongside the ongoing arm misery, has since been sidelined twice by diplopia, in October 2021 and March 2022.

Nonetheless, Marquez still managed to take Honda’s only MotoGP wins of the 2021 season at Sachsenring, COTA and Misano, his long-held preference for left-hand trac꧟ks being exaggerated by the right-arm problems. 

Marquez's 💟best result so far this season is fourth place, although another COTA victory looked possible without a technical issue at the start.

LCR's Takaaki Nakagami was the top Honda rider in Sunday's Mugello race, finishing just under one-second ahead of Marquez, in eighth. Marquezs team-mate Pol Espargaro, who has taken Honda's only podium of the season so far, in t💟he Qatar opener, fell from 16th on lap 4.