Full Chat podcast: James Toseland on his career ending accident and winning the World Superbike Championship
Two-time World Superbike champion James Toseland is the latest guest on the second series of motorcycling podcast Full Chat.
He is joined by hosts Iwan Thomas and footballer-turned-presenter David Prutton to discuss his World Superbike Championship career, pivoting to music with his band and his thoughts on Carl Fogarty and Valentino Rossi.
Toseland is best known for winning the World Superbike Championship in 2004 for Ducati and 2007 with Honda.
James Toseland on replacing the adrenaline from racing
During the episode, Toseland discussed his serious wrist injury that led to his retirement in September 2011, following a crash at Aragon, and opened up to the boys on how you can’t replicate the thrill of the track in everyday life.
“Unfortunately Iwan it is age and time because there is no replacing it. I had six operations on my wrist to get it moving, to get back to it (racing). If I’m honest, even though I’d retired officially, I then went onto another seven or eight years beyond that to get back what I’d lost because I don’t think humans can recover from anything of this nature which is so devastating, quickly.
“You’ve just got to go through a certain process and you can recover quicker or slower, depending on how you cope with it and what you do with your life during that period.
“People can slip down the slippery slope of life as we know to replace things with alcohol, drugs and all the rest of it, which it can replace emotions of some levels, but it doesn’t allow you to heal, and it certainly makes the emotions worse during that and I quickly realised that.
“Luckily and now with being 43, not 33 a few years after I’d retired, I’m old enough to not really want to go 200mph anymore. After the operation in December I got 50% movement back and I did a feature at Donington Park for the World Superbike event that was happening.
“I was just able to get back on a bike again and ride round a track for the first time in 13 years. What it did was make me realise why I found it so difficult in coping with life beyond it (racing) because it is so much fun.”
Plenty more episodes of Full Chat to enjoy
Series two is off and running, but we’ve also got a host of episodes for you to listen to if you’ve missed the previous series of our motorcycling podcast.
You can listen to Full Chat on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or various other platforms if you want to see what all the fuss is about.
