After dislocating his shoulder on the penultimate day of the Romaniacs, Walker went to his phyiso when he returned home to Britain only to have it dislocate again.

“I’ve been having trouble with my shoulder for about two years now,” confirmed the 21-year old. “After I won the British Extreme Enduro Championship I went to see my physio and it popped out again during some stretches. I knew then that I needed to get it fixed.”

With a long summer break in the extreme enduro calendar, the KTM rider sought medical advice about his injured shoulder. “I got some scans done on the Thursday and they were able to book me in for the operation on the following Wednesday at 6am – I was out of hospital by lunchtime. It’s sort of happened really quickly but now I’ve got time to recover.”

Although needing to wear a fixed sling for a number of weeks, Walker has been able to maintain his fitness with some light cycling in the gym and gentle stretches on his shoulder.

“At the moment I need to wear the sling but once I can take it off I’ll be able to do more rehab. My plan is to ride my bike again in six weeks.

Full factory treatment for Jonny... © Twitter - @JonnyWalker_22 

“Although it’s boring not being able to race, I did have the opportunity to do some really cool stuff. Red Bull sorted me out with tickets to see the F1 racing at Silverstone. Getting to check out the pits and listen in to the team’s headphones during the Friday practice was an awesome experience.”

With his recovery going according to schedule, when does he see himself returning to racing?

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s more than likely that I’ll miss the ISDE in Germany as my shoulder won’t be strong enough to race for six days.

“Luckily my next big race won’t be until the Red Bull Sea to Sky in Turkey at the end of October so I’ve plenty of time to be race fit for it. I finished second there in 2011 so hopefully I can go one place better this time around. After that I’ll start to focus on preparing for the SuperEnduro World Championship.”