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Rachel Atherton Out For The Season

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ANIMAL COMMENCAL STAR TO UNDERGO SURGERY

The current women’s Downhill World Champion sustained nerve damage to her (left shoulder during pre-season training camp in America and, after surgery on it, is expected to be out of action for the next three to four months.

rachel-atherton
Ouch! Get well soon Rachel...

However fans will still see Rachel on the circuit as she’ll be joining the Animal Commencal team and enjoying a temporary role as race commentator on the Nissan UCI World Cup Series for Freecaster.tv.

Animal Commencal team director Dan Brown said: “The nerve in Rachel’s shoulder has seen little improvement over the past four weeks so the surgeon has taken the decision to operate. We’re hoping Rachel will be back in training in around three to four months so there’s still a chance she will compete at the World Championships in August.

Follow Rach’s recovery via her blog: http://animalcommencal.tv/rachel/blog/

Fellow Animal Commencal riders Dan (27) and Gee (24) Atherton are looking to stamp their authority on the 2009 season. Both riders have enjoyed some overseas training recently with Dan staying Stateside after the Sea Otter Classic and Gee enjoying the terrain in Italy. Dan will be looking for his first 4-Cross win of the season this weekend (1-3 May) at Houffalize, Belgium. Meanwhile, current Downhill World Champion Gee recently clocked up a win in AE, Scotland and will be looking for top spots in the DH in France and Andorra where he won World Cup Rd 3 last year.

Join the Atherton ‘Extended Family’ at www.athertonracing.co.uk to stay in touch with all the latest news from team Animal Commencal.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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Comments (4)

    ellipticelliptic May 1, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Rachel’s blog is not for the squeamish :gulp:

    flowmtbguyflowmtbguy May 1, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    and I had her in my Dirt Mag fantasy downhill team. bugger.

    twohatstwohats May 2, 2009 at 12:52 am

    Great, not only do we have Warner shouting like an idiot on Freecaster as the riders go down the hill, we’ll also have Rachel with her really bad, pseudo American speak to contend with. Thank god for Eurosport…

    yamyambladeyamyamblade May 3, 2009 at 12:17 am

    would have been good to see Rachel and Tracey battling this season but on well and I agree twohats mind you rob warner can be funny but cant be doing with rachel yo yo gangsta talk just think grow up and dont get me started on that skinsuit argument when she stood on podium !

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