The Australian suffered a fractured shoulder in her Australian National Championship win and will miss the two opening rounds of the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series in Brazil.

Rebecca Henderson (Orbea Fox Factory Team) is recovering from a fractured shoulder following a crash during the Australian National Cross-country Olympic (XCO) Championships.

The 33-year-old was involved in a crash in the opening lap of the race, but remounted her bike and battled back to win in a sprint finish – her 12th consecutive elite national title.

Scans have since shown that she has fractured her shoulder, while her thumb has a "possible small fracture".

 Posting on her social media, Henderson said:

“I’ve come back today after MRI, CT and x-ray scans. In a nutshell, I have fractured this shoulder but it’s pretty good news because the ligaments and everything is all good, so no surgery is required. So that’s a really good outcome. The thumb has a possible small fracture – it’s hard for them to say yes or no. It’s just still really sore and I can’t use it so I guess I will recover in good time.

“The bad news obviously is no Oceanias and no Brazil. No Brazil is a huge hit for me. I made some big commitments to myself late last year that I was going to go all in for Brazil.

“I just wanted to be back at my best and see what was possible. I worked really hard to put a different support network around me to be the best I could possibly be.

“There’s been a lot of effort behind the scenes for that and I felt like I’ve been training as good as ever. I’ve been training really hard ... and it was about time for me to be accountable to myself for the goals I had set so that’s really hard to have that ripped away, but it is what it is.”

Henderson had been set to make her WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series debut for new team Orbea Fox Factory Team in a fortnight’s time, but the injuries mean that the Australian will be ruled out of the first two rounds of the 2025 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series, which take place in Araxá - Minas Gerais, Brazil on April 3-6 and 10-12.

We wish Rebecca a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing her between the race tape this summer.