Dement sidelined by broken collarbone.

Jeff Dement has been told to rest after it was confirmed that he had chipped the end of his left collarbone after crashing in practice for the recent European Grand Prix at Teutschenthal in Germany.

The American was running routine practice laps, having automatically qualified for the finals due to his points ranking, when he was thrown from his bike, landing heavily on his left shoulder.

"The crash occurred as I was coming around the outside of a fast left-hand sweeper style turn," he reported, "I was told by an observer that the rear wheel caught a rock that was laying out of sight. It threw me sideways and slammed me to the ground hard. I came down on my left shoulder and had immediate pain.

"I was able to seek the immediate treatment from my specialist from Germany, Manfred, as well as an Italian doctor named Giorgio Gondolini, but both of them seemed certain that I had suffered a ligament tear as well as a possible fracture at the tip of my collarbone."

Despite the injury, Dement hoped that not having to run the heats would allow the pain to subside in time to take part in the main event.

"We iced the shoulder heavily and used some anti-inflammatory medicine to keep the swelling down," he said, "But, on Sunday morning when I woke up, I could hardly move my arm from all of the stiffness due the swelling. I really wanted to at least try to do the GP and I felt that with pain injections it might be possible. I was told that the collarbone would not get any worse, because the suspected fracture was on the end of the bone. With green lights from the medical staff I decided to give it a try."

A poor start gave him a lot to do, but Dement recovered to a points position by mid-race. After that, however, the injury took over, restricting him to a lower-than-hoped-for result.

"After getting the pain injections, I went out for the sighting lap," he said, "I could feel that the shoulder and collarbone were moving around and although it felt strange the pain seemed to be bearable.

"When the gate dropped, I did not get a good launch at all. I was cut off pretty hard and rounded the first turn in the back of the pack around 25th. In the opening laps, I made some good passes to move into 16th position. I was riding with my left arm way down and probably looked like a bit of a goon. I could not use the arm to wheelie over the bumps or even to charge the turns like I normally do.

"I could see the tenth-placed rider and felt that it may be possible to catch him. At halfway, however, my right arm was heavily 'pumped up' due to the fact that I was holding on real tight to take the pressure off of my left shoulder. I had thoughts off pulling out of the race, but I really wanted to stay out there and try to gain a few points. In the end, the injury proved to be to much for me and I had to just cruise home for a 21st place finish, first outside the points."

Disappointed by the result of the race, Dement sought immediate reappraisal of his injury - and was told that he may have to miss round four in France next weekend.

"After getting back home to Pescara, I went straight away to see my specialist," he reported, "After doing X-rays, it was determined that there was a small fracture to the left collarbone and also their was a tear within the ligament which holds the collarbone down.

"Under normal circumstances, the injury takes around three weeks to heal. Unfortunately, I need to be back riding in twelve days for the next GP in St Jean d?Angely, so I am going to be in a shoulder brace for the next nine days and will only take it off two days before the race. I just hope that by staying off the bike completely between now and the race will not cause me to lose any of my timing or intensity."