A new women’s champion will be crowned in the Bermuda Half Marathon Derby this year after Rose-Anna Hoey confirmed she will not be competing because of injury.

Hoey has still to fully recover from ailments suffered in a late-December incident, when she and a group of cyclists on a training ride were crashed into in a hit-and-run.

“I fractured my left shoulder and right hand,” Hoey told The Royal Gazette. “It is pretty disappointing, but I am thankful for my good bike helmet. It had a significant dent in it, so I was lucky my injuries were not worse.”

Hoey said she never had any expectations of competing this year, given the extent of her injuries.

“It’s been a long road as the shoulder fracture was slow to heal with a frozen shoulder, and I have only started to feel a little more normal over the past few weeks,” she added. “It’s not easy to run with your arm stuck to your side, unfortunately.

“I struggled with daily tasks, so running was not always a high priority. I did not expect to be able to race this year, so we booked a family holiday, leaving the day before the race.”

Hoey romped to a convincing victory in 2021 in a personal-best time of 1hr 25min 25sec to become the first back-to-back women’s winner since Ashley Couper’s threepeat between 2014 and 2016.

It was a third title overall for Hoey, who finished the 13.1-mile race more than 3½ minutes ahead of Couper.

Hoey had set her sights on claiming the race record on the course starting from Somerset.

“I was hoping to go for the Masters [over-40s] record, but it’ll have to wait another year,” she said. “Victoria Fiddick holds the record of 1:27:43 from the west, so I was shooting for something under that.

“I am slowly but surely getting back in shape, so look forward to challenging for the title again next year.”