Rachel Atherton injured at Fort William world championships
Six-time world champ puts her own shoulder back in after practice run gone wrong
Photo by:
Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
Rachel Atherton’s world championships are not going the way she would have hoped. The six-time world champion was injured on the first day of elite practice at Fort William on Thursday.
The 40-time World Cup winner reported that she dislocated her shoulder on her first practice run. Atherton was in the bottom Motorway section of the course, a series of large, high-speed jumps, when she came up short on one, cased the landing, and felt she had aggravated an old injury.
“The force must’ve gone to my dodgy shoulder wrong and it popped out,” Atherton said. “I didn’t even crash, I just felt the pand and rolled the next jump thinking oh my god my shoulder, then jumped off my bike swearing and trying to get it back in.”
Atherton then put her own shoulder back in before Nina Hoffmann rolled up to try assist.
With finals running on Saturday, it looks like Atherton will miss racing world championships on what is effectively her home World Cup course.
