The stellar rise which Tom Toparis has enjoyed in recent years will stall in 2021, due to an major surgery he underwent just a fortnight ago.
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The 20-year-old has announced he will not race at all this year, due to a extensive surgery he had on March 3 with the aim of correcting a growth arrest in his right arm.
When Toparis was 11 years old, he broke the growth plate in his humerus, which caused it to be more than seven centimetres shorter than his left arm by the time he reached adulthood.
"I had to do something about it, because it was causing my back to bend up a bit," Toparis said.
The surgery involved a magnetic rod being inserted into the bone, with an electrical device to stimulate the bone's development, with the target to grow the bone by five centimetres.
Due to the slow nature of the procedure and the length of recovery and rehab, Toparis and his team decided it was best if they write off the 2021 season altogether.
This means Toparis, the two-time champion of the ASBK Supersport division, will not defend his title this year. However, he hopes to remain involved in the competition in some capacity.
"I'll still be around the track this round [at Wakefield Park], I'll probably be doing some commentary or something," Toparis said.
"For the rest of the season I might be helping one of the young kids out."
Though Toparis has lived with one arm shorter than the other for nearly ten years, he was not aware until recently that there was an option to correct it.
When he found out about the possibility of a surgical solution, he decided that it was better to get it done sooner rather than later.
"When I saw the opportunity to get it fixed, I just decided to get it over with," Toparis said.
"Because this year, the borders shut at the drop of the hat. There's a race in every state, and as soon as the borders shut the race is cancelled.
"If I knew last year would go the way it did, I probably would have gotten it done last year and I'd be ready to go by now."
After spending much of the last 12 months traveling domestically and overseas, Toparis is looking forward to some time at home, although he added that watching the ASBK as a spectator will take some getting used to.
"The first race of the year [from March 12 to March 14] was the first race I've missed in about five years," he said.
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