One of New Zealand’s most underrated sportspeople Courtney Duncan is recovering well from pericarditis. The four-time Women’s World Motocross champion had the health scare just before the opening round of the 2025 season at Sardinia.
Duncan began experiencing chest pains in February this year and was eventually rushed to hospital. After a battery of tests, the 29-year-old was diagnosed with pericarditis, which is a swelling of the tissue surrounding the heart.
“I had chest pains, discomfort and shortness of breath,” Duncan told the Weekend Herald. “I never go to hospitals unless there’s something really wrong and this just didn’t feel good at all.
“I had no idea what was going on, which was quite tough as it seemed like the world was ending. I had four or five visits to hospital, got a referral to a cardiologist, had some scans and they found out what it was, which was a relief after so much time of not knowing.”
Things are slowly on the improve and while nowhere near fully fit, Duncan is feeling much better and there appears to be no long-term damage. It’s been a long, slow road to recovery so far and Duncan is taking solace from the fact things are getting better and her fitness is slowly improving.
“I’m getting better and I’m definitely on the improve. It’s slow and steady, but as they say, progress is progress. I’m finding I’ve got more energy and obviously a decrease in chest pain, and my breathing is way more settled now.
“I’m able to get through exercise and I’ve been back in the gym and outdoors on the cycle for the past couple of months. But it’s just a slow gradual rebuild.
“That’s the thing with this illness and the post-viral syndrome that I’ve been going through, you can’t jump back at it too soon or you’ll go backwards, so it’s just about being patient and slowly building into it,” said Duncan.
The multi-world champion has been beset with injuries during her racing career, missing out on at least two more world titles when accidents – a photographer stepping out on to the track, broken right foot, knee injury and broken collarbone – put paid to her title chases while leading the championships.
“I’ve got through so many setbacks in life, and this is just another one and I’m dealing with it. The only thing on my mind now is getting better and then we’ll look at when I can race again. The support I have had has been fantastic and helped me get through all this.
“I think just with getting better and seeing the progress has helped heaps. It’s just been a bit of a change-up to the usual for me. I’m usually go, go, go and pushing the body to the limits, so it’s been quite hard to step back from that and understand that.
“I need to kind of rest in order to get better and just take it slow and gradually build into it.
“I had to cut back all the social gatherings and a lot of other events and that sort of thing. I wasn’t allowed to do anything like that. I had to fully rest and kind of slow down, and it’s still like understanding that rest is super important right now for the body to heal. So, I’ve spent a lot of time housebound, which is again, out of the ordinary for me,” she said.
Duncan hasn’t been travelling much as she tries to stay put and focus on getting healthy, with a lot of specialist appointments and working with doctors. She has no set date for a return to riding a motorcycle, let alone heading back to Europe. Suffice to say Duncan has taken the sensible approach to her recovery and has written this year off as to any competition to ensure her body is fit for purpose when she does decide to compete again.