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.
11 comments ↓
I hope all the little amateur doctors who said, Shawn’s injury was “no big deal” (even though she had a second surgery and has still not shown full return to form, not a good sign) will realize that any knee injury MAY be enough to make an athlete not competitive. Lavar Arrington was never the same after his knee. Paul Hamm’s shoulder is a BIG QUESTION.
These jerks on the message boards really spin me up. Want to put them on the wrestling mat and grapevine them.
yea but Lavar Arrington had his entire meniscus removed. So his knee was bone on bone and his final year with the giants he was looking pretty good till he blew his achilles and he prolly would have come back from that if it werent from his motorcycle crash. he also weighed around 250 pounds so its tougn to compare.
I think with the right doctors and the right rehabilitation treatment, Mustafina will heal quickly. I am a gymnast, and I tore my ACL and partially my MCL, and I returned to gymnastics in 5 months after surgery, and I competed 7 months after surgery. However, I can say that I was not in peak form until a year after surgery.. :/
It’s definately possible. Justin Spring came back in less then a year
I don’t wish bad upon the girl but her form is probably a major factor in this injury.
Savona from Canada came back to 100%, too.
If she does do the slow rehabilitation and careful training, this might just position her well to contend for the AA in London.
or…she may never be the same. It is a real possiblity. peeps. really. it is.
I really hope she bounces back. She has so much promise. But I agree with KV, it seems to me that form probably had a major influence on the likelihood of injury.
Peeps.. Yes it’s a real possibility that she will never be the same but I think there is a greater chance she will recover.
She is young, strong and overall healthy which will help her so much! It pays when you are 17, the World Champ and have the Olympics in mind. I have no doubt she can handle this and that her body will be kind to her.
Chris Lindsey– I had the same recovery time as you for ACL, LCL and meniscus removal.
The one positive that might come from Aliya’s injury is if she does replace her advanced twisting skills with somersaulting skills instead. She has such bad form when twisting and yet she performs major twisting elements or dismounts on 3 of 4 apparatus. She has beautiful form when she does saltos. . . her double Arabian was absolutely gorgeous at this year’s American Cup. No cowboying whatsoever. I would love to see her perform her UB dismount on floor. I don’t think anyone has done this skill on floor yet so maybe she could get another named element in the COP. Before this injury, I had hoped she might change her beam dismount to the Patterson, but that might be too taxing for her knee now.
I really hope she is able to return to full form. She is amazingly talented and has such elegance, aside from her helicopter legs on twists. This is hardly the way anyone should be inspired to change the elements they perform.
[...] the AWFUL injury on Vault to our World Champion, Aliya Mustafina, many are concerned that she’ll not be able to [...]
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