At the end of the 2023 season, three-time World Champion Bareback Rider Tim O’Connell was sidelined with an injury he had been fighting that took him out of the entire 2024 season.
“The injury, it actually started in Denver of 2023, the first horse I got on. The horse slipped and rodeo is rodeo and I tore a big chunk of my groin off my pelvic floor and rodeo through the course of 2023 with it,” O’Connell said.
In Jan. 2024, O’Connell had his first surgery before he would require a second in June. He would have a six month recovery that allowed him to make his return in 2025. He made his first ride back at the Cinch World’s Toughest in Des Moines earlier this month.
“I’m just excited and anxious to be honest with you to get back to the game I love. It’s a blessing. It’s a total blessing to make the National Finals and to do it my career, I’ve made ten straight National Finals, 2014-2023,” he said.
His decade long career is one that O’Connell says finally caught up with him in 2023 when his injury occured. The time he spent on the sidelines was a good mental break on top of letting his body heal.
“You’re conestantly trying to be the very best in the world. So to take a year to remove myself from rodeo, let all these nagging injuries finally heal and also get the big injury recovered fully to where I can trust it and I don’t have to worry about it anymore is a big step for me. I’m ready. I’ve never had this much time off of a bucking horse and I’m ready to get rolling again,” O’Connell said.
O’Connell is back and feeling at the top of his game. He followed up his payday in Des Moines with two solid rides at the National Western that landed him in the Semi-Finals later this week.
