Brook
Macdonald
New Zealand
·
MTB
Date of birth | 25 November 1991 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Hawke's Bay, New Zealand |
Age | 34 |
Nationality | New Zealand |
Career start | 2009 |
Disciplines | Mountainbike Downhill |
At the 2009 Junior World Championships in Canberra, New Zealand's Brook Macdonald stormed the hill to take the gold medal and make his first dent in the world of international mountain bike racing.
Racing since 2006, Macdonald started to make it big on the senior stage in 2011, when he scored two third-place finishes on the UCI World Cup circuit in both Canada and on the famed Fort William track in Scotland.
Going one better in 2012, Macdonald delivered a prefect run to win the DH World Cup in Val d’Isere, France aboard a Mondraker and he was again standing on the podium with a second in Fort William, Scotland, as part of the Trek World Racing Team in 2013. But after a season of promise, Macdonald had to retire early due to a shoulder injury and undergo surgery.
Having made a good recovery, a number of niggling injuries hampered Macdonald's podium aspirations over next few seasons.
For the 2018 season, Macdonald, known to downhill fans around the world as 'The Bulldog' for his hard-charging style and never-say-die attitude, returned to the team where he made his name, MS Mondraker, a team he'd last rode for in 2012. The move proved to be a big success and Macdonald returned to the World cup podium, scoring third place finishes in Andorra and France despite breaking his collarbone at the opening round of the series after qualifying fastest.
The early part of the 2019 season saw Macdonald back on top of the sport after wins in the Crankworx races in Rotorua, New Zealand and Innsbruck, Austria. Unfortunately, though, a serious accident at the UCI MTB World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, in late summer left Macdonald with serious fractures to his T12 and L1 vertebrae.
Showing all the Bulldog fighting spirit he displays on the track, Macdonald worked tirelessly on his recovery and made his return to action in 2020 at Crankworx Innsbruck. The following year he returned to the top step of the podium, earning his first victory since the injury at Crankworx Rotorua.