Olympic Excitement

[jimmy olsen]

Did someone win a bronze with broken ribs and a punctured lung? or was that anotehr olympics? a commentator mentioned something like that last night, but missed part of the story so i don't know what event, or if it was even this olympics.

Yes.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310031,majdic-won-olympic-medal-with-four-broken-ribs-and-damaged-lung.html

Majdic won Olympic medal with four broken ribs and damaged lung


Whistler, Canada - Petra Majdic won her cross-country sprint bronze medal with four fractured ribs and a tear of the membrane of the lung from a training crash, Slovenian team doctor Tatjaz Urul said on Thursday. Turel told Slovenian television TVS said that the injuries will not allow Majdic to compete again at the Vancouver Games but can't fly home immediately either because of the lung injury.

"Examinations in a Vancouver clinic confirmed the rib fractures. We made the recommendation that she shouldn't fly home immediately because of the lung injury. A long flight could do her harm," Turel told TVS.

Majdic's heroics were the talk of the town even before the exact nature of the injuries were later known. She arrived in a wheelchair at the medal ceremony late Wednesday to collect her bronze behind Norway's Marit Bjoergen and Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland.

"I think that they (the Slovenians) will think that I am just more than a hero, especially when they find out what injuries I was competing with. I think for sure more than a hero," Majdic said.

Majdic, 30, fell on an icy patch and slid into a small gorge during the warm-up. First ultrasound examinations revealed no fractures and she used just pain killers to get from qualifying through the quarter-and semi-finals onto the podium.

"This is not a bronze medal, this is a gold medal with little diamonds on it. I already won a medal for going to the start. The wish was so big because I have been fighting for this for 22 years," she said.

"There was a big hole. I fell three metres. I fell on rocks. I broke one ski and both poles. I was screaming."

Majdic, who had to be helped out of the finish area by team officials after each race, named personal and national pride as the driving force behind her refusal to give up.

"I thought it was over. I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't walk. But my desire was so strong. The second part of me said I will go to the start," she said.

"You know what it is like when you came from a small country. And you never know whether you will get such a chance again."

Majdic got the first Olympic cross-country medal for Slovenia, the nation's fifth overall (all bronze) and the first individual medal since 1994.

Majdic's psychologist Matej Tusak encouraged her to compete as a day of pain was nothing compared to decades of preparation.

"It is just a lot of pain and I said to her 'You have 25 years of training, you can do this, you have to do this for yourself, you will just have to hear your heartbeat and feel your arms and legs, then you can do it,'" said Tusak.

Majdic was the Olympic top favourite as leader of the sprint World Cup, and with 16 of her 20 World Cup race wins coming in this discipline.

She said Wednesday that she would likely miss Friday's pursuit but would try to compete in next week's 30km. However, the final diagnosis now ended her Olympic adventure.

It's one of those Olympic stories that make me watch the Games.

Damn, just finishing the race under those conditions is a great accomplishment, actually medaling is an amazing athletic feat.

[Jacob]

Robert Gibbs makes good on his bet: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/video/player/feat/NHL_Highlights/18594604#feat/NHL_Highlights/18594604