Lucas Vacarisas is already on his way to India to compete in the Delhi Challenge which starts this Thursday, marking the fifth event on the Challenge Tour calendar.
A trip that was planned from the start of the season, but which was almost blown off course. In Kenya, a fuse that had been slowly burning for weeks finally ignited. His wrist had had enough: “I had been suffering from an edema for a few weeks that was causing me pain, but I had it under control. However, in Kenya the discomfort increased and by Sunday it was extremely painful. I couldn’t even hold the club,” recalls the Barcelona native. Lucas was on the verge of his first top ten finish on the DP World Tour in what was his third appearance on the Circuit. The pain was intense, yet he still managed to finish the tournament within the top 40. A feat considering the circumstances.
There was fear that the injury had worsened. It was time to apply a lot of ice and wait for the inflammation to subside before more tests could be done. The swelling went down and the worst fears were confirmed: “the edema was very extensive in the semilunar bone and there was a lot of synovial fluid spread out causing me a lot of pain. Almost a week had passed and I still couldn’t even hold a club.” Then the search for treatment began. Calls and more calls. Lucas was determined to compete in India at all costs and wasn’t going to give up at the first hurdle. Things didn’t look good. “I contacted many doctors looking for a treatment,” says the Catalan. After hanging up the phone for the umpteenth time, a doctor offered him a possible solution, as there is a new machine in Barcelona that applies magnetotherapy very intensively. There is only one machine in the city and Vacarisas found it to get to work. Magnetotherapy is an effective treatment for bone edemas like Lucas’s, it helps reduce pain and speed up metabolism in the wrist to promote the reabsorption of the edema. It basically involves the use of magnetic fields with magnets. It is a common treatment in high-performance athletes, but the aforementioned high-intensity machine speeds up the recovery time even more. Lucas didn’t hesitate and went for it.
At that moment, he began an intensive treatment with two sessions a day. Magic… well, more like science and great physiotherapy professionals, but the fact is that in just six days the pain had subsided. An edema can take weeks or even months to heal, depending on the severity. It’s quite a feat to be able to hold a club again just two weeks later. “I haven’t been able to put in a lot of work and until I land in India I don’t want to push the machine too much, but at least I know I’m in a condition to play the tournament, something that a few days ago was less than feasible. I’m not fully recovered but I’m no longer in pain, when I get back I’ll have to continue with the treatment,” Vacarisas points out.
The Catalan arrives in India eager to do well after his start to the season on the Challenge hasn’t been as dreamt. He didn’t make the cut in any of the first three tournaments of the South African tour and has only scored points in the aforementioned Magical Kenya Open. It’s still very early and there’s plenty of time. Vacarisas himself knows that last year he scored the majority of his points on the Circuit in the final stretch of the year (including a victory), but there’s no need to leave everything to the last minute. Lucas wants the DP World Tour card and he will fight for it. Never a truer word said, let’s get to work.
