Injury ends rider’s season
Rae Morrison remained seated on her bike and said ‘‘a few swear words’’ to herself before rolling down the hill to the nearest race marshal.
She had just broken her heel - an injury that would rule her out of the rest of the Enduro World Series mountainbike season - so the curse words were probably justified.
‘‘It was just a really unfortunate incident. I was racing down the fifth and final stage of the race and came off a high speed jump, landed, and my pedal broke. All my weight and the landing impact went through my poor heel,’’ the Team Lapierre Gravity Republic rider said, initially thinking she had broken her ankle.
Morrison described it as a ‘‘painful’’ end to what has been a successful EWS season.
‘‘The season only has six weeks left with the final two races in France and Italy.
‘‘My recovery time will be about three months I think - I will know more when I go for surgery - but there is no way I can make those races in time.’’
Up until crashing out of the Canadian Open Enduro in Whistler last weekend the Kapitiraised rider, who was recently based out of Nelson, was the form Kiwi on the eight-round circuit.
She said it was both frustrating and disappointing to have the season cut short, but remained relatively upbeat, saying crashing goes with the territory.