Walker injury woes thwart final World Cup plans

Olympic BMX silver medallist Sarah Walker has suffered a further injury that has thwarted her return for this weekend’s final UCI World Cup Supercross in California.

Walker injured her wrist after crashing in practice at the Chula Vista track near San Diego yesterday.

“Sarah has damaged her wrist. While it’s not too serious, it will mean she won’t be able to race this weekend,” said BikeNZ BMX Coach Ryan Hollows.

“She just can’t get a break this year at all. She was training strongly and had high hopes of doing very well this weekend.”

Walker’s injury woes began when she dislocated her shoulder at the Supercross round in Norway last April, but recovered sufficiently to gain her outstanding Olympic success. However as there was a high chance of the shoulder dislocating again, Walker had an operation late last year that sidelined her for five months.

In her final competition preparation for the UCI World Championships in Auckland, she was taken down in a race in the USA in June, where she suffered a minor fracture in her elbow.

Walker again showed great powers of recovery to get to the start line at the world championships, qualifying second fastest in the time trial qualification.

However she further injured the shoulder when she fell in practice on race day which ended her world championship dreams.

Walker had recovered fully and had trained well for the final World Cup until the spill in practice yesterday.
“You just wouldn’t believe it. My bad luck just continues,” Walker said.

She is hopeful of recovery in time for an international invitation event on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean in two weeks time.

There are eight New Zealand men competing at Chula Vista, the Olympic BMX training centre, led by world championship silver medallist Marc Willers.

There is further practice today, qualifying time trials tomorrow and racing on Sunday (NZ time).