Kaden Hopkins will target the World Championships next month after recovering from surgery to repair a broken collarbone.

Hopkins was in high spirits following surgery at a Spanish hospital yesterday morning, a week after crashing at the Tour of Guadeloupe.

The 26-year-old is targeting a return to training before the end of the month as he builds towards the World Championships in Montreal from September 20-27.

“I’m optimistic and looking forward to being back at training,” Hopkins told The Royal Gazette.

“I should be back on the road in about eight or nine days. I’ve spoken to my team and they put no pressure on me to come back to race for the team before the end of the season.

“They’ve just told me that I can have full focus for the world championships, so there’s no rush to come back.

“I can do my preparation and recovery super-focused and without the pressure of feeling like I need to come back and race again.

“Normally the season will end at the beginning of October. This year I’ll finish at the Caribbean Championships, which is October 10-11.”

When he had surgery in February for the same issue, Hopkins was back racing internationally within weeks.

“Last time from the break and surgery I had four weeks until the Pan American Championships,” he said.

“This time I have a little over five weeks so I’ve got more time to come back. I’m also in a lot better shape now than I was before I broke it the first time, so I'm not expecting to lose very much anything at all.”

According to Hopkins, the pain has been bearable this time around compared with the first time.

“I'm actually not in any pain at the moment,” he said.

“I’m hoping maybe this time I get off a little bit lighter than I did last time in terms of the pain after the surgery.

“I’m sure the pain medication and the anaesthesia from the surgery are still working a bit. I remember last time I had the surgery done I was in quite significant pain afterwards, but right now I am feeling a lot better.

“I couldn’t actually start my road to recovery until this surgery was done. Now that it’s done I’m looking forward to getting to physiotherapy and then getting back on the bike.

“Last time I crashed I was in Spain so I was able to get straight to the hospital. I think it was three or four days before I was able to get it done and this time it was a week.

“This time it wasn’t as serious because it was stabilised. The two parts of the bone were stabilised by the plate from last time so there was nothing moving around in my arm or anything.

“I was able to move and I was able to get back from Guadalupe travelling without any discomfort.”