Olympic gold-medal hope Ellesse Andrews faces a battle for fitness, after breaking her collarbone in the UCI Nations Cup at Adelaide over the weekend.
Andrews, 24, won kierin silver at Tokyo three years ago and has become one of the world's top sprint cyclists since, captuing the world title at Glasgow last year.
She is a frontrunner for Halberg Sportswoman of the Year next week, but will likely have her arm in a sling, after the hitting the velodrome track hard during the women's sprint semi-finals.
Andrews was trailling Japanese rival Sato Mina when the pace went on and seemed to clip her rival's back wheel. She needed assistance leaving the track, after also suffering concussion in the fall.
"No major concerns on the collarbone break," Cycling NZ high performance director Ryan Hollows told 1News. "It would appear that it's a clean enough brake that it should heal on its own and at this stage, no surgery required.
"It's devastating for her, never a nice position to be in. We're still early in the year.
"It's not panic stations. We're pretty confident she'll be back where she needs to be in plenty of time."
