Brownlee out with stress fracture
The 2010 off season is truly the mean season for triathlon’s world champions.
Alistair Brownlee, the 21-year-old British tri-savant who swept to the 2009 Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Series title with a perfect 5-for-5 season, sustained a stress fracture of the femur and will miss the first two rounds of the 2010 season in Sydney and Seoul.
Brownlee joins on the sidelines fellow Brit Chrissie Wellington, the 3-time Ironman World Champion, who broke a hand, wrist and arm in a January 2 bike accident, and Australian Emma Moffat, the 2009 ITU World Championship Series champion, who broke her collarbone in a bike accident two weeks ago on Australia’s Gold Coast.
The ITU Media release did not detail any specific accident which prompted Brownlee’s injury. According to medical reference works, a femoral stress fracture is most often caused by prolonged overuse. The normal recovery time is seven weeks, but swimming and stationary cycling is recommended for maintaining fitness and rehab. Brownlee is 6-feet tall and weighs 137 pounds.
Brownlee, Moffat and Wellington join ITU superstars Vanessa Fernandes and Emma Snowsill, who spent most of last season on the sidelines with injuries and who have not yet indicated if they have fully recovered for the 2010 season.
"As an athlete, getting the best out of myself means pushing myself to the edge of my limits,” Brownlee told ITU Media. “Unfortunately, sometimes you cross the line and injury is inevitable. While the worst part is not being able to do what I love every day, I am pleased with my rehab to date. My primary focus is to get fit and healthy and I really hope to be racing in the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series race in Madrid in June."
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Given that the ITU World Championship Series scores competitors’ best four finishes of six preliminary races going into the Grand Final in Budapest, Brownlee will still have an opportunity to recapture his world title by scoring points at all the four remaining WCS races in Madrid, London, Hamburg and Kitzbuhel – or two other lower-scoring World Cup races – and the Grand Final in Budapest.
