The 16-year-old Muscovite tore her ACL landing an Amanar vault during the women’s all-around final. The injury, at first thought to be a less serious torn miniscus, was confirmed as an ACL tear …
Worst case scenario is the unhappy triad:
The mechanism for this injury occurs when a lateral (outside) force to the knee is received while the foot is fixed on the ground in external rotation.
The classic O’Donoghue triad is characterized by an injury to three knee structures:
• the anterior cruciate ligament
• the medial collateral ligament (or “tibial collateral ligament”)
• the medial meniscus (however, lateral meniscus injuries are more commonly seen among athletes.) …
We’ll likely find out before the scheduled April 12th surgery in Munich.
Recovery is often cited 6-9 months. But ultra fit, young and motivated athletes often make faster progress than average.
On the other hand, gymnasts need total recovery.
… Mustafina’s injury dramatically changes the landscape for the 2011 World Championships, which may or may not be held in Tokyo in October. Without her, the Russian team is weakened but still deep, with Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Viktoria Komova and in a pinch Anna Dementyeva available to do the all-around. …
read more commentary on Gymnastics Examiner – Aliya Mustafina to undergo surgery for torn ACL, will be out until 2012
The target now is Olympics 2012. Aliya may need to take out some of the advanced twisting skills, replacing those value parts with more somersaulting skills. Shawn Johnson is trying to do that right now, after her own knee surgery.
Good luck, Aliya.
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