After a heavy highside in Free Practice One, Nicolo Bulega was declared fit but is riding through a lot of pain.

Nicolo Bulega's weekend at the Czech Republic World Superbike Round did not get off to the best start in Free Practice One.

The Italian rider suffered a massive highside during the opening Practice session and was taken to the medical centre. After checkups, the Italian was declared fit to continue during the weekend, but he is still in pain from the crash.

"It was important for me to ride today and after a big crash like this morning it is important to ride the bike again and regain the feeling with the bike," Bulega said when he was asked about his Free Practice One crash.

"Unfortunately, it was a very big crash, I have some pain all over my body but luckily it was not worse. I’m quite happy with the FP2, because I didn’t try a lot but the feeling with the bike was not so bad. We can definitely improve something so not so bad in the end. I still don’t understand exactly, because I was not pushing 100%.

"The lap before I was pushing much more, but I was on a cooldown lap that lap and it was a spectacular crash with the throttle closed completely. I understood I was crashing after I was already on the ground."

Despite his crash, Bulega was able to finish Free Practice One in fifth, Free Practice Two in fourth and Free Practice Three in second.

"Honestly, today I had some pain especially in my foot on the bike," Bulega said when talking about his Friday as a whole.

"On this track, there is a lot of changing of direction, which can be difficult, but anyway, I will never give up, and I will give 100% every lap, and we will see after the weekend.

"In FP2, my pace was not too good, but it was also not bad. I was still thinking about this morning’s crash, which didn’t help my lap time, but tomorrow I will forget about this crash, and I can be faster."