Rónán Dunne isn’t accustomed to holding back, but that’s exactly what he needs to do at this weekend’s downhill world championships. The 23-year-old has shown proof of what he can achieve in the past, combining skill, speed and a fair degree of risk in nabbing two World Cup wins, plus third in last year’s worlds.
This season was supposed to be all about building on that, becoming even faster, even better, but instead he missed four months of racing due to a double leg fracture. And that’s why Dunne should be good but might not be great at the worlds.
“I have to be wary of crashing,” he tells off.road.cc. “My leg is still not fully healed. So you just want to be smart, really. And my leg’s quite weak as well, so if you hit big features like a big compression or something, you notice your body shifts to that one side.
“It’s not able to hold you up as easy. It is getting better, but you just need to be a bit smarter.”
Dunne was sidelined for months but finally got back to racing at last week’s Les Gets World Cup. He finished 38th in qualification and then 29th in the finals. That’s way off his World Cup win at the same venue last season and in Bielsko-Biala in 2024. But the result was more than he was actually expecting.
“The race went well,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on racing at all from the beginning, just planning on doing practice day. But was really happy to make qualifying and to race finals.
“I definitely held back quite a lot as I cannot afford to take a crash on course. But I was happy enough with how the week went in the end as I wasn’t sure how it would go.”
The World Cup is next up, with qualifiers Friday and finals Saturday. Dunne spent time at Val di Sole prior to the Les Gets World Cup and is a little wary about the course.
“It’s a brutal track. It’s probably one of the roughest,” he said. “I did some training on it, and it is very physical, rocky… I was in quite a bit of pain throughout the run.
“I’ll have a similar approach to Les Gets. I don’t have many expectations for world champs as I’m still getting back into things. But we will see how it goes.”
“My leg just broke”
Coming into the season, Dunne was fixated on having the best year of his career. His worlds medal inspired him to raise ambitions, and he told off.road.cc that he had eyes on the World Cups.
“Top three in the overall would be the main goal. In 2024 I got fourth in the overall. So I think top three should be pretty doable,” he said back in January. “Obviously I’d like to win the overall, but I’ll take a top three.
“And then obviously just consistent podiums and the odd win will be pretty nice. That’s the main goal, really, because every year there are new riders coming up. It’s just getting tougher and tougher. Everybody else gets faster as well, not just yourself. So it’s always nice just to build.”
Dunne spent a chunk of the winter in New Zealand in order to have the best possible prep for the season. Things started well with second in Red Bull Hardline Tasmania, a runner-up slot he felt could have been a victory had the final day not been cancelled due to bad weather.
He felt confident moving forward but then had a very bizarre accident in April. Dunne was doing a practice run at an invitational race in France and ended up with a big injury.
“I was in a turn, and went to dab my foot,” he said of the crash on April 5th. “We dab feet quite a lot mountain biking to prevent crashing, or just out of instinct. This one just got my foot stuck between the ground and my pedal. And then my leg just twisted and broke.
“I never came off the bike, which was quite nice but then also a bit weird. Because you didn’t crash, you weren’t really expecting anything bad to happen.
“But I felt it and heard it; it was a pretty loud bang. I looked down, and my leg was pretty loose. I was still riding; the bike was still moving quick enough. Obviously I jammed on the brakes, but you can’t stop straight away. You didn’t want to clip out; you didn’t want to stop because then you plop over. So it was a bit of a bit of a tricky one. Definitely not ideal.
“It was pretty sore. Definitely a sore one.”
The sudden wrench fractured both the tibia and fibula in his lower leg. Surgeons had to operate and inserted a metal rod into his shinbone from knee to ankle, pulling his tibia back together. He didn’t need to wear a cast as a result but was completely off the bike for two months. It was, he said, a pretty boring time.
“The first three weeks, I couldn’t really do much. You’re kind of sat, to be honest, the whole time, just because the swelling was so bad. I was on my phone too much, on YouTube, literally just melting my brain.
“But then once the swelling disappeared, I was able to get up and about and do more bits.”
Dunne spent some time renovating an old shed on his parents’ farm, working to turn it into a small apartment. Then, as his recovery progressed, he was able to do some road cycling. However, he had another setback in June.
“I was at the side of the road taking a photo, and I slipped on some grass,” he explained. “I literally just slipped on my ass, nothing big, but it twisted my leg and that made it super sore.”
Dunne ended up back on crutches for several days, and then found himself with ankle problems. Fortunately, he had exactly the help he needed. He competes with the Mondraker Factory Racing Team but, as he is also a Red Bull-sponsored rider, he has access to the famous Athlete Performance Center in Salzburg, Austria. He spent a lot of time there while recuperating.
“This is our biggest advantage over other athletes who aren’t sponsored [by Red Bull] and who get injured,” he explained. “It definitely speeds up your recovery. Everything is done in literally the most perfect way. They’ve got the best kind of doctors and physios, really, and then they lay out your whole week for you and take care of it all.
“You have your breakfast, your lunch, your dinner, pretty much everything, while you are there. You’re eating properly, it’s pretty amazing.”
Specialists determined that his ankle problem was due to a nerve issue originating from his back. But while that was quickly addressed, there were other concerns.
“We got another CT scan, and they weren’t too happy with how the bone healing was going. So it actually wasn’t looking very good to get back on the bike when I had planned,” he said. “My whole goal was to be back on the 26th of July, but when I got back to the Red Bull place I wasn’t in the best of shape.
“They were kind of like, ‘okay, we’re going to have to wait another six weeks.’ So four months plus six weeks, it would have been the five-month mark. And that was pretty annoying. But then, after the first week with the Red Bull guys, everything started to improve quite quickly.”
Those helping him with his recovery then decided to try something a bit different. They encouraged him to take his downhill bike to a pump track, and while he was sore riding it there, he was told the pain was acceptable as long as it didn’t linger. After a little time doing this, they reached the next step: he was advised to try some downhill tracks near the Red Bull Performance Centre.
“I went on the weekend of the 25th and 26th of July. That was the weekend I had been originally planning to get back, so it was really nice,” Dunne said. “I wasn’t riding very fast; I was in a fair bit of pain, but the pain didn’t stay around after I was riding. That’s the main thing. It was okay to be sore riding, as long as when you stop riding there’s no pain and no pulsing during the night or aching or the next day.”
And while scans since then show there is more bone healing yet to occur, the rod in his tibia keeps things stable. He was given a green light to get back to heavier training and then racing, with the Les Gets World Cup the result.
A big end of season goal
Holding back in Les Gets and, most likely, the worlds – unless he gets a rush of blood to the head – means Dunne will not be competing at 100 percent. That’s frustrating after his stirring bronze medal performance 12 months ago, but he sees the bigger picture. It’s far better to heal up now rather than risking an off and doing further damage.
What helps is that the way the calendar is structured provides him with other chances. There is a four-week gap between the worlds and the next World Cup race in British Columbia. That’s followed by the final round in New York, then the Red Bull Hardline race in Vancouver. Dunne believes the extra time to prepare for those races should be positive for him.
“It is perfect; I should notice a huge difference. I’ll be able to go home and go to the gym,” he said.
“In the last two World Cups and Red Bull Hardline, I’m hoping to be… well, not 100%, but to at least ride the way I want to and try to get some good results.
“I’ll be trying to come back in good form. And then Red Bull Hardline is the last one. I’ll be trying to tick that off with a decent result. It’s a long way away, and I could maybe see myself being on the cards for a podium.
“I’ve got a podium with every single one, and I’ve won two of them. It’d be nice to get a podium and end the season strong.”
Dunne dodged injury for many years, saying in September 2024 that the only fracture he had sustained was to the scaphoid bone in his wrist. Since then he’s had more than a share of misfortune, with one crash at Red Bull Hardline Tasmania in early 2025 fracturing his pelvis, his back and a collarbone. He also fell at the La Thuile World Cup and bruised his liver.
This year, his non-racing accident ended up having a bigger effect on him, in terms of time off the bike.
“I don’t want to call the year a write-off because I’ll still crack on and try my best. But it is pretty much a write-off,” he said. “At least I get some races in. Going into the offseason is a little bit easier because of that.
“But everyone gets a write-off year. Injuries are guaranteed. It’s going to happen to everyone, I suppose. It wasn’t the most ideal, but it happened anyway. The best you can do is prepare for the next year.”
One small upside to it all is that he is even hungrier for success now.
“Basically I had like a little holiday,” he said. “I’ll be keen to put the work in now, and to make up for it.”
