Rebecca Henderson had a big target drawn around the opening round of the UCI Whoop Mountain Bike World Series this year given the Australian’s fortunes had looked to be turning near the end of last season as the rider – who in 2022 touched the top of the world rankings – secured her first World Cup top five in the cross-country Olympic race in well over a year at Lake Placid.
The season was soon ending but the flame had been stoked for the rider as she looked ahead to 2025, when she would shift to the Orbea Fox Factory Team after her Primaflor Mondraker squad of seven years closed.
“Last year, in September, I was just like, ‘okay, I'm all in for Brazil’. I haven't had the results I've wanted the last two seasons – and I know I've got it in me – then the second last World Cup last year it was like, ‘finally! I have it again’,” Henderson told Cyclingnews in an interview from Australia last week.
However, all the work toward the opening round in Araxá last weekend and also the second round in Brazil came unstuck as even though she fought her way to a 12th consecutive elite Australian XCO title, Henderson had done it through what she later discovered was a fractured shoulder and thumb sustained in a crash on the very first lap. Looking back, Henderson has mixed emotions about the race that has altered her season.
“I knew I'd crashed, obviously, but it was such a minor crash that I just couldn't even consider that there would be so much damage and it was just a matter of like, ‘well, I'm still here, so I'll keep going’,” said Henderson. “I didn't enjoy it, that's for sure. But I honestly would never expect or even support someone to do that – I don't think it's a good thing to do – but I am proud of my strength and resilience to do it.”
After the results of the medical checks came in, however, one thing was certain: Brazil was no longer an option and Henderson, who has only missed four World Cup races since 2012 and never before an opening round, would have to sit out both round one, which took place from April 3-6, and also the second round in Brazil which will unfold from April 10-12.
“It's not really how you want to start with a new team,” said Henderson, who has now had to refocus and settle into spending time on the trainer so that hard-won form she had built during the off-season for Brazil can now be redirected for a little later in the year.
“It could be worse and I have time now to just make a complete recovery and just refocus for Novo Mesto, so it's not the end of the world. I know what it is to have setbacks,” said Henderson.
Nové Město runs from May 23-25 leaving Henderson with more than nine weeks since the injury occured to mend and reset, with the clear timeframe providing a reassuring recovery framework.
“Going through an injury recovery, or even the pain of an injury, feels so insignificant,” said Henderson. “You know, in six weeks, your bone is healed and you should be good to go, whereas, like, taking care of your mental health is so much more difficult, and, like, you just don't know when you when, if, how you're going to come out the other side. So yeah, I think a fracture in the bone seems quite easy to deal with.
It will, however, damage her chances of delivering a high finish overall in the World Series but that wasn’t her goal for the year anyway.
“When I won the World Cups in 2022 I didn't have a great season but I just had a really good pea, and I would do anything just to have that feeling again, not to win – although obviously I would like to win – but just to have that feeling of being at your absolute best,” said Henderson. “So I think as far as that goes, it's okay because I have eight more chances this year to try and find that peak.”
