AG2R La Mondiale's Axel Domont, one of team leader Romain Bardet's key men in the recent Tour de France, suffered another injury after crashing at the Race Torquay in Australia at the end of January, but is back to his best He is fighting to get back to his best.

Domont supported Bardet in the 2017 and 2018 Tour de France, but Bardet broke his collarbone on stage 4 and fell off the bike. He then broke both his hip and collarbone in the Volta a Catalunya in March 2019, which prevented him from riding last year's Tour, and the Frenchman already knows he is not set to ride this year's Tour.

"I would like to ride the Giro d'Italia (Oct. 4-25), but it's not in the planning stage yet," Domont told L'Equipe on Sunday.

"At the moment I'm just thinking about my body and being able to race; I have to start riding at the beginning of August, so there's still a little time."

A month before the Tour Down Under, Domont traveled to Australia with his wife and teammates Bardet and Clément Chevrier to train and enjoy the sun in Adelaide.

"I got off to a great start in the sun and got really strong," said Domon, who finished 67th overall in the Tour Down Under, followed by the Race Torquay near Melbourne, a World Tour-level event held in Torquay, near Geelong. A new one-day race held three days before the start of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

After crashing down a curve that appeared to have diesel attached to it, Domont broke his pelvis, resulting in a long and uncomfortable trip back to France and a three-month layoff while confined to a wheelchair.

This was yet another setback for Domont, who felt his luck took a turn for the worse after his crash at the 2018 Tour, joked in recent years that he spent more time in the hospital than on the bike, and believes he broke his collarbone seven times in his career.

"Rehab has been tough, I've been in a wheelchair for a long time," the 29-year-old said of his latest injury. But at the same time I knew I was doing better than after my crash in Catalunya last year. It was so bad that I had to stay in bed for more than a month, and twice I thought about stopping my career completely, but I was able to come back at a high level.

"The first two months in the rehab center, I really felt like the most miserable man on earth. And then I realized that in a place like that there were people with much more serious problems." Still, it made me think about my future,

"I'm going to try to be a good giro and not think too much about it. But if this is my last season, I want to leave with my heart pounding. The nightmare would be to end my career with an injury. I want to enjoy my work and end it with a real goal and a good feeling. I like what I do, but I'm not going to continue no matter what."