MTB Freeride athlete Harriet Burbidge-Smith, gave the fans an injury update and it’s not the best news. On her newest social post, Harriet announced that she’d be heading to surgery on Friday after understanding that the recovery wasn’t going as planned and finding out that certain aspects of her injuries were overlooked.
Harriet went on to say “For lots of reasons, at the moment it’s not even close to healed, but there’s also damage to the discs that will not heal on its own”, she goes on to say “I cannot come back right now, even if I waited a year or whatever, could not come back and crash again, it would be an extremely bad situation”. Harriet explains that fusion surgery will be the best chance at the life she wants to live, regardless if that includes competition in the future.
Harriet’s injury stems from a broken C7 and compressed T2 and T3 at the end of the 2024 Crankworx season. Harriet crashed in her first run and shared in her Instagram stories that despite breaking her hand, her brain still said to go for a second run, which resulted in a heavy backflip crash midway down the hillside. We’re wishing Harriet strength in this next chapter of her recovery.
Photographer Credit Nick Waygood / Red Bull Content Pool
