Motocross Grand Prix contender Jonathan Barragan of the Kawasaki Racing Team saw his world title ambitions shattered yesterday, when he dislocated his right leg whilst training in Belgium.

The accident occurred as the 24-year-old Spaniard hit a patch of soft ground at Olmen and crashed heavily whilst practicing before the GP of the Netherlands this coming weekend. He was treated in hospital the same evening and is now awaiting the results of a post-operational scan before being discharged to the care of his own doctor.

It is as yet too early to make a prognosis of how long Jonathan will be absent from the race track, but he will clearly miss several GPs and consequently no longer has a chance of clinching the world title for Kawasaki in 2010.

“It’s a shame, Jonathan was so optimistic for the rest of the season when we found the perfect engine settings for the start,” said KRT team manager François Lemariey. “He has been training hard in Holland and Belgium for two weeks, but yesterday afternoon at Olmen he had a bad crash. He crashed when he hit a soft part of the track and dislocated his right leg.

“Unfortunately it took a long time for the medical staff to get him to the hospital where the doctors immediately treated the injury. He got the results of a scan today and there are no other damages so he expects to be able training again in six weeks time. He is now waiting the permission to leave the hospital this weekend, to go back to Spain and visit his doctor to get advice for the recovery process.”

The KRT team has made it quite clear to Jonathan that he is under no pressure to return to racing until the injury has healed completely; the first priority is for him to regain full fitness and then begin preparation for an assault on the 2011 world title.

Prior to his injury, Barragan had been holding down seventh position in the FIM MX1 World Championship after two rounds of the 15 race series despite suffering poor starts in each of the first two GPs.

Barragan joins Yamaha Monster Energy Motocross Team’s Gautier Paulin on the sidelines, the Frenchman still not healed from a pre-season crash where he suffered a broken left fibula bone in his leg.