Breezy Johnson, American ski racer, top candidate for next month’s gold medal Beijing Olympics The Women’s Downhill said on Monday that she would not be competing in the tournament due to a torn cartilage in her right knee, which she received in the second of this month’s two high-speed training crashes.
Johnson admitted that she was thinking of racing despite her knee injury, saying she had a broken heart. “But the doctor told me that he could do more damage to me,” Johnson said in a telephone interview from Germany. “I was able to throw away all of the next season, or beyond, in one race, and I didn’t even know how well I could ski that race.
“I just didn’t want to drag to the finish line.”
Johnson, who finished second in the last three World Cup downhill races she participated in, had the best season of her career and after some impressive results at the end of last season. It seemed to have reached its peak.
However, due to a training crash on January 8, 26-year-old Johnson cut his right knee and swollen. She rested her joints, competed in two races, resumed training last week and became one of her fastest practice times before the World Cup downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. However, on the second day of downhill training in Italy, Johnson got off the jump, landed awkwardly, and fell off the racetrack to a protective net that wrapped the trail.
“I felt a crunch on my knee and thought I had crushed the meniscus into 400,000 pieces,” Johnson said. After magnetic resonance imaging of her joints, Johnson told her that her doctor had told her that “a huge mass of cartilage had come off her bones.”
She expected to have surgery after returning to the United States and hoped to be able to resume the race next season.
At the exit of Johnson, the road to the gold medal on the downhill of the Women’s Olympics is wide open. Italy’s Sophia Goggia, who boasts an overwhelming lead in this year’s World Cup downhill rankings, may fall into the snow during Sunday’s Super-G race and be injured and unable to compete. In Beijing.
The Italian ski team said Gogja sprained his left knee, partially tore the ligaments of his knee, and suffered a “mild fracture” of the fibula. Gogja promised to start physiotherapy for his injury soon, hoping to keep the title in Beijing on February 15, but there was also damage to his tendon.
“I feel Sophia. She has been skiing great for two years,” Johnson said. “She can’t imagine what she’s experiencing.”
Johnson added that he wondered if Gogja could reconsider his plans not to ski in Beijing as he could leave the Olympics.
“You don’t know me, but do you think I made the right decision?” She said.
She consulted her doctor again and asked if the inherent risk was if she could crash again. What if she rehabilitates her right knee, finds a way to ski some effectively, and stays upright? However, Johnson was told that skiing at 80 mph, which is typical of downhill speeds, could cause serious knee damage.
Johnson, who finished seventh on the downhill slope of the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, said on Monday, “That’s why I couldn’t do this.”
The recovery that Johnson faces is not her first return from a serious injury. She had to recover from her tibial plateau fracture in order for the US ski team to compete in Pyeongchang. Seven months after her Olympics, she broke the anterior cruciate ligament of her right knee during training and missed her entire World Cup season. In June 2019, she tore two ligaments on her left knee.
Johnson said he is now facing another knee reconstruction surgery, but is willing to come back again as many other top racers have done this and continued to record their greatest achievements. .. As an example, she mentioned Alexander Armott Kirde. He rebuilt his anterior cruciate ligament last year after a dip in training and is entering a dominant season this winter.
“You see it, we are all optimists, we all hope this injury is the last one,” Johnson said. “Sports never love you, so you experience a period of time when it breaks your heart and it crushes you. You can’t because it’s a sport. But you love it so much, anyway I will do it. “
