BAD NEWS FOR NEWMAN

Kyle Newman is facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines after details emerged today of the severity of the shoulder injury suffered in last Friday's Darcy Ward Invitational meeting at Poole.

Newman had hoped that he would be fit to race in Wednesday's match against Wolverhampton but those hopes have been dashed after today's news.

With no significant improvement in his shoulder Newman attended hospital this morning for an x-ray, but was initially told that he had no broken bones, only muscle damage. Kyle went on to the physiotherapist from there and discovered that he had three torn muscles in his shoulder, the main one being his rotator cuff.

During his visit to the physiotherapist he received a phone call from the hospital informing him that they had made a mistake. They read the first set of x-ray's wrong and he had in fact a fractured scapula (shoulder blade). Newman is now awaiting an MRI scan to find out the extent of the damage to his rotator cuff. This may require surgery, but coupled with the fractured shoulder blade he faces a lengthy spell on the side lines.

A disappointed Newman said this afternoon, "I'm not sure how long this will take to recover from. This one has hit me as hard but as ever I will pick myself back up and try and get myself fit again.

"I'm praying I don't need surgery on my rotator cuff, that would be a complete disaster. I'm devastated that this has happened in my first race of the season and it has set me back.

"It's hard to remain positive at this moment in time, all I want to do is go out and race my bike. I've worked so hard over the winter to make sure I'm in a good position to have a good season but I'll now need to play catch up. Hopefully I'll have some more news later this week."