Rachel Atherton suffered pain and injury on the first day of the World Downhill Championships in Fort William yesterday.

The six time world champion, who was raised in Llangynog and is a former Marches School student, sustained a dislocated shoulder during the first day of practise.

The 40-time World Cup was in the bottom Motorway section of the course, a series of large, high-speed jumps, when she came up short on one, cased the landing, and felt she had aggravated an old injury.

“The force must’ve gone to my dodgy shoulder wrong and it popped out,” Atherton said.

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“I didn’t even crash, I just felt the pand and rolled the next jump thinking oh my god my shoulder, then jumped off my bike swearing and trying to get it back in.”

Atherton then put her own shoulder back in before Nina Hoffmann rolled up to try assist.

With finals running on Saturday, it looks like Atherton faces a race against time to recover.