The sport is essentially a combination of enduro, motocross, and trial racing. There are different sections, such as enduro (Hay et al., 2023), typically with wooden and stone obstacles, motocross elements (Hino et al., 2017), such as jumps, wave rows, mandiners, and turns, and trial skill (Grange et al., 2009) elements with higher structures. The fifth round of FIM’s 2024 SuperEnduro World Championship took place at Budapest’s MVM Dome on February 3, 2024. The timeline diagram shows the nature of the injury. The FIM SuperEnduro World Championship is an exciting motorsport held in indoor arenas around the world. The track consists of soil (covered and compacted earth) and artificial obstacles. The obstacles include: rocks, wooden beams, concrete pipes, logs of various diameters, earth jumps, large tires with a diameter of 2 meters, etc.

The courses are 250–300 meters long. The appearance of the course, its degree of difficulty, and the obstacles placed on it are entirely up to the local organizer, which means that competitors do not know what the course will look like until the last moment. This provides great freedom, but at the same time makes the task very difficult.

The competition day begins with morning practice sessions, where entrants must qualify for the evening races. Fourteen drivers in each category can advance to the finals. Those who fail to qualify directly still have a chance in the consolation round, known as the “Last Chance” race, where the top two finishers advance.

Important rules: Competitors qualify for the final during time trials. Competitors may not receive outside assistance on the track, except from track marshals performing their duties for safety reasons. Competitors may only use the track. However, if they accidentally leave the track, they may safely return to the track from the point closest to where they left the track without gaining an advantage. Leaving the track is prohibited. Attempts to gain an advantage by leaving the track may result in a 5-s time penalty or disqualification, at the discretion of the FIM judge. The difficulty of the track makes this race extremely exciting for spectators. Here, it is not speed that is most important, but the combined work of the motorcycle and the rider. Despite a recent injury, Oliver competed in the Prestige category for the first time, finishing the race while risking re-injury. He also participated in this study, wearing a Polar Team Pro Monitor to track physiological data and complete psychological assessments before and after each race. To better interpret the data, a follow-up phone interview was conducted the next day to explore his motivations and reactions to both subjective and objective measures.

For Oliver, who was 28 years old at the time of the study, sport is a part of his family’s everyday life. While he devotes his life to motorsport, his brother competes at national and international levels in wrestling. He has been riding motorcycles since the age of five. Throughout his career, he has won 12 championship titles, numerous cups and medals in Motocross, enduro, and enduro cross disciplines, becoming a medalist in the 2023 SuperEnduro GP Europe Cup, which meant he qualified for participation in the ‘Prestige’ category in 2024. Less than one month before this study, Oliver suffered two injuries during the third and fourth rounds of the SuperEnduro World Championship. Despite his knee injury, he insisted on racing and agreed to participate in this study conducted during the fifth round of the 2024 SuperEnduro World Championship in Budapest, Hungary.

On race day, the research protocol was explained to Oliver, and he was instructed to act naturally as if not participating in the study. One hour before the first race, Oliver was fitted with the Polar Team Pro chest heart rate monitor in the race pit area, which remained on until approximately one hour after the final race, with continuous recording throughout this period. While waiting before the race, Oliver sat in the designated pit area and focused on the upcoming race. The physiological data from the monitor were followed in real time on an iPad by the examiner. These data were automatically stored by the system and were available for immediate analysis.

Five minutes before lining up for each race, Oliver completed the state psychological measures, which took approximately one minute. After each race, once he had settled at the finish area, he completed the post-race questionnaires, which were identical to the pre-race ones except for the questions assessing perceived performance and mental and physical effort. Two researchers were present: one read the questions aloud while the other recorded the responses (Figure 1).

Physiological recordings were extracted as 30-min averages for the anticipatory and recovery periods before and after the races, respectively. The recordings during the three races were isolated with time stamps and averaged for each race period, lasting between seven and 8 minutes (Table 1).

Oliver found the races very exhausting mentally and physically, based on the 10- item Borg scale, on which he scored 9.33/10 on mental exhaustion and 10/10 on physical exhaustion across the three races. Oliver’s core affect [momentary non-reflective feeling state] was, in all instances, higher before than after the race (Figure 2A). His positive and negative affect, apart from before the first race and after the last race, were in the high positive to low NA quadrant (Figure 2B). His anxiety was lower after each race (Figure 3A). Moreover, his perceived performance was always lower than what he expected (Figure 3B). Finally, his score on the adapted EAI-R was 25/36, lower than the cutoff score of 29/36 (Szabó, 2021), which would qualify him as being at risk of addiction to the sport.

All physiological measures were higher compared to the 30 min preceding it and the same period after it. However, the average mean values observed pre- and post-race (Table 1) were still high because they reflected anticipatory (before the race) and recovery (after the race) periods. Oliver’s average resting HR was 55 beats per minute (bpm), as retrieved from his smartwatch. Therefore, using this input value, based on the Karvonen formula (She et al., 2014), Oliver’s HR ranged between 88 and 90% of his maximal HR in the three races (Table 1).

Before and after the races, Oliver’s HR fluctuated between 60 and 69% of his maximum HR, corresponding to moderate resistance and aerobic training load (Da Silva et al., 2020). His mean physical effort exerted during the races was around 300 watts, reflecting a high intensity. Oliver burned an average of 223.33 kilocalories (Kcal) during the average ≈7.25-min races (Table 1). His training (race) load, expressed as training impulse (TRIMP) calculated by a built-in algorithm of the Polar monitor from HR and race duration (Banister, 1991), was (Willegers, 2022; Deroche et al., 2011) in the three races.

This section summarizes Oliver’s answers to the seven questions asked in the brief interview (see Methods section). Oliver described his involvement in SuperEnduro as an “addiction,” expressing eagerness to compete in the more challenging Prestige category despite the risk of injury and potentially lesser recognition than in the junior category (Q1). He felt excited and proud competing in front of enthusiastic spectators, with this excitement evident the day after the race (Q2). Oliver found the race extremely tiring, particularly in the second half, compared it to gladiator fights, and struggled with his knee injury (Q3). Racing in front of fans motivated him, but he worried that his performance might have been negatively judged due to his injury, even though spectators were unaware of it (Q4). His greatest fear was death, which was most prominent before the race but dissipated once he entered a focused state. He feared that any distraction from this state could lead to severe injury or even death (Q5). Oliver perceived his anxiety decreasing after each race due to reduced stress and challenge (Q6). He rated his performance as low due to his knee injury and inability to enter a flow state, which affected his satisfaction. However, finishing the race was still a positive experience for him (Q7).

This section may be divided by subheadings. It should provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation, as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.

In the post-race interview, Oliver described his motivation as an “addiction,” likely reflecting emotional attachment or passion, though passion was not formally assessed. His attachment may also serve as an emotional regulator. The crowd energized him, supporting social facilitation theory, while concerns about performance evaluation may have lowered post-race affect, consistent with shared reality and spontaneous representation theories (Deroche et al., 2011).

Fear of injury and death stemmed from both the sport and his reduced control due to injury, aligning with theories linking lower perceived control to increased fear in high-risk sports. Although Oliver reported lower post-race anxiety, this was not supported by HR data, highlighting a known disconnect between physiological and subjective responses. He rated race performance low but appreciated finishing, with slight increases in reflective positive affect after the first two races.

This case study reflects the experience of one injured athlete and is not generalizable. Potential Hawthorne effects may have influenced subjective measures. Injury likely affected both psychological and physiological responses. Activities during anticipation and recovery were not assessed, which may have missed potential insights. Though the EAI showed no risk of addiction, passion was not measured, limiting the interpretation of his “addiction” claim. Contextual race variables (setting, spectators, qualification) may have also influenced results (Szabo and Demetrovics, 2022).