Injury crushes world title goal

ANDY Yates's dreams of back-to-back world titles have been crushed.

ANDY Yates’s dreams of back-to-back world titles have been crushed after the Bokarina kiteboarder underwent a shoulder reconstruction.

THE dream of back-to-back world titles has been crushed for Andy Yates.

The Bokarina kiteboarder has undergone a shoulder reconstruction, ruling him out for the remainder of this year's tour.

Yates broke through on the international scene last year, capturing the freestyle world title.

The 20-year-old was performing solidly in this year's championship before aggravating a shoulder injury while training at Caloundra recently.

He went under the knife earlier this week.

“It is disappointing,” he told the Daily yesterday.

“Ideally, I would have liked to defend it, but you can't help these things.

“I'm just glad it happened now and not when I was leading (the tour) like last year.”

Yates broke a bone in his shoulder while competing in Egypt in 2007.

The injury healed itself over time but last month he aggravated it, tearing a muscle away from the bone, during a training run. He now has a screw in that bone.

“I knew straight away that it wasn't good,” he said. “I had a few appointments a fortnight ago and it was unanimous that it (reconstruction) had to be done.

“I couldn't keep going like it was so I decided it was better to get it done as soon as possible.

“I had a great surgeon and it all went well and I'll make a full recovery.”

Yates is allowed to start “light kiting” in six weeks and can step up the recovery a few weeks later.

He hopes to compete in the last round of the world tour, at the Gold Coast in December, to get a feel for competition again and may have to trial to regain his spot in next year's series.

“I'll definitely be there at the Gold Coast but whether I'm competing or not, I don't know,” he said.

“I've lost my ranking now so I have to go down to the trials next year if they have them.

“But that's not really an issue. Once you get a few results you start to qualify for the main events automatically.”

Noosa product Keahi de Aboitiz is leading the wave division of the world series.

Originally published as Injury crushes world title goal