KTM Australia press release:

KTM Motocross Racing Team rider Luke Styke may have surgery tomorrow or Wednesday on a ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered at the fifth round of the Australian Supercross Championships in Sydney at the weekend, pending the results of a visit to the specialist today.

The promising, KTM 450 SX-F-mounted SX1 rookie got out of shape during the main event and came up short on a jump with just the very front of his boot on the footpeg, tearing his Achilles tendon.

Race Safe medics quickly treated and provided a preliminary diagnosis of the injury, which will relegate Styke to the sidelines for the time being, alongside team mate Kirk Gibbs, who suffered a fractured pelvis during training in late October.

New treatments exist however, which could potentially alleviate the need for surgery, and Styke will discuss these options with his specialist to determine the best course of action back to the racetrack.

Round five of the Australian Supercross championship went to Chad Reed ahead of Gavin Faith and Daniel Reardon.

In SX2 racing, Davey Motorsports team mates Lewis Woods and Jack Simpson rode to fifth and sixth places respectively in the main, which was won by Jimmy Decotis, from Wade Hunter and Jackson Richardson.

Kyle Blunden, KTM Motocross Racing Team Technician – “I think the only good news from the weekend was for the sport, rather than for us as a brand. The event itself was unbelievable. Saturday night there was quite a tricky rhythm lane and Luke came up short a little bit stepping over the tabletop, and when he did so he was standing on his toes and all his body weight came down as his bike was trying to come up and it put a lot of force through his foot. It’s ruptured the Achilles tendon in his left foot. Tomorrow we’ll know a lot more about the damage and the recovery time. Achilles tendons can be quite a tricky thing to repair so we’re all wishing all the best to Luke for his recovery.”

Luke Styke – “We’re seeing the specialist today and if we need to operate, I’ll be pushing for it to happen either tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, but there are also some new treatments now where an operation may not be necessary and will discuss option A, B and C shortly.I think I was about fifth or sixth in the main and riding fairly good, then on about lap 10 I got a bit squirly in the whoops and I crashed and bent my bars up. I got going fairly quick but just tagged the backside of a fairly big jump and fell into the upramp of the next one. When I hit I felt it pop. I knew I’d done something.It’s a bummer to not be racing next weekend but the team and Gibbs and I will move on and concentrate on 2016.

It took me a while to gel with supercross on the 450 – missing last year I hadn’t ridden supercross for two years and it was a bit of a slow start but we got the ball rolling. It seems like 80% of the riders are hurt now and I put that down to a lack of public tracks and pre-season testing – very few guys are fully prepared, which increases the risk factor, and it definitely shows. Gibbsy and I have got some big plans for supercross up in Queensland next year. We are going to outlay some money, and do our pre-season properly so it decreases the risk of getting hurt and so I can be more of a title contender from the start.”

For more information on KTM Motorcycles, visit www.ktm.com.au or www.facebook.com/KTMAustralia.