Billy Bolt to miss Hard Enduro World Championship rounds after knee surgery
Billy Bolt to skip early rounds of 2024 FIM Hard Enduro World Championship season, including Valleys Extreme opener in UK, due to knee surgery post SuperEnduro win.
The highs and lows of off-road motorcycle racing hit home this week for the newly crowned SuperEnduro World Champion, Billy Bolt. Having claimed his fourth indoor title in front of a raucous crowd in Newcastle at the weekend, Bolt went under the knife to repair the injury he sustained to his left knee from an awkward landing at SuperEnduro round three in Germany.
Electing to focus on the SuperEnduro title, Billy continued to race the indoor season with serious damage to his left knee ligaments. Despite that, and the obvious pain in both Germany and the following round, the Husqvarna Factory Racing rider went onto collect seven wins from seven races on the way to the championship crown.
His team report that, after claiming the SuperEnduro crown on Saturday, March 2 at his home round in Newcastle, UK, “Billy went under the knife on Tuesday, March 5 to reconstruct his ACL, repair his meniscus and post lateral corner, and ensure that two identified fractures in his tibia had healed. Thankfully, the surgery went well and Billy has already started his recovery process.”
Billy Bolt: “It feels good to be out of surgery and the doctors are really pleased with how it all went. They were able to successfully repair all the damage to my knee and were happy to report the two fractures in my lower leg have already healed up nicely.
“Unfortunately, as we were already aware, there's quite a long healing process, and I don't want to take any risks.
“This will mean I miss the first few rounds of Hard Enduro. But all being well, I hope to be back racing for the second half of the season.
“Huge thanks to the team who patched me up, and of course the fans for their support and messages.”
The downside to all this is the recovery time will extend deeper into the year than Billy would hope which means he will miss the opening rounds of the HEWC world championship which includes the UK round in Wales on May 10-12.
The team add Bolt has his sights set on returning to in time for the second half of the Hard Enduro World Championship season – although at this stage that is not clear exactly what that means but it is expected at least the first three rounds.
Fabio Farioli – Husqvarna Factory Racing Enduro Team Manager: “It was impressive how Billy managed to still come out on top this SuperEnduro season, even with an injury. Billy has been really motivated and focused on getting this title, and I don’t know how he managed to push through and ride in the condition his knee was in.
“His health has to come first though so that he can be feeling 100% for the next races, so we decided to stop now and have the surgery. I have no doubt that Billy will come back even stronger and faster than before.”
