Jack Bobridge recovers in his Adelaide hotel room yesterday after a close encounter with a semi-trailer. Picture: Mark Gunter Source: The Australian

Just days before making his international debut for GreenEDGE at the Santos Tour Down Under, the world track time trial champion is laid up in an Adelaide hotel licking his wounds, nursing a suspected broken left wrist.

GreenEDGE general manager Shayne Bannan yesterday named Matt Wilson, a former winner of the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, and Baden Cooke, a former green jersey winner of the Tour de France, as potential replacements for Bobridge should he fail a fitness test today.

"I've cut up pretty rough," Bobridge told The Australian before being interrupted by a visit from the ASADA drug testers. I'm sore and stiff all over and, as you can see, I've lost a fair bit of bark."

Bobridge, one of the rising stars of Australian cycling, was blown off his bike by a passing semi-trailer while racing against the clock in the national time trial at Ballarat on the last day of the Australian road titles.

While initial scans cleared the 22-year-old of any broken bones, swelling in his left hand, wrist and elbow have not subsided.

"The arm just blew up like a balloon after I hit the deck on Tuesday," he said.

"There's not a lot of give in bitumen when you hit the deck at 55km/h.

"The doctors want to take more scans to make sure and certain that there are floating bits of broken bone in the left wrist.

"And they can't do more tests until the swelling goes down."

Bobridge had been named in the GreenEDGE team to contest the opening race of the UCI WorldTour calendar in South Australia.

"I was selected for the Santos race to ride as a team helper and, to be honest with (sporting director) Matt White and to myself, I won't start just for the sake of competing, then having to step off my bike a few kilometres into a week-long race," he said.

"Unless I'm capable of holding the handlebars, I'm not going to risk the team's chances of stage wins."

Bannan described the incident involving Bobridge and the semi-trailer as "shocking bad luck".

"But thankfully he came off OK. It could have been, much, much worse," Bannan said. "It is a relief the initial scans cleared him of any broken bones.

"But that's not to say there isn't some small fraction and we've ordered a fresh round of X-rays.

"At this stage, he's got to be a doubtful starter for what is his home state race."

You can read the full story in "The Australian" by clicking here