Olympic champ Steven Burke breaks collarbone - but aims to be back for World Championships

Double Olympic champion Steven Burke has broken his collarbone in a training ride but hopes to recover in time for the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Paris next month.

The crash happened during team time trial training on Mallorca yesterday, according to a statement issued by British Cycling.

The 26-year-old from Lancashire said: “I’m really disappointed to be injured at this stage of the season, but I’ve been in the gym today and hope to be back training on the turbo this week.

“I aim to be back on the track as soon as possible so that I can resume training for the Track World Championships at the end of February.”

The championships take place at France’s new national velodrome at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines from 18–22 February.

British Cycling’s technical director, Shane Sutton, added: “The accident on Sunday was unfortunate, particularly as Steve had been showing some great form of late, but these things do happen and we have an excellent team of people who will help Steve get back to full fitness as soon as possible.”

One of the founder members of Sir Bradley Wiggins’ new team which will be officially launched this spring, Burke won gold medals in the team pursuit at both Beijing in 2008 and London two years ago.

At Beijing, he also won bronze in the individual pursuit, the last time that event featured in an Olympic Games. Wiggins took the gold medal, with countries allowed to field more than one rider in individual events at the time.

Burke also has four world championship medals in the team pursuit – one gold, two silver and one bronze.