The West Australian has published an interview with Australian Olympian Lauren Mitchell as she recovers from LARS surgery. You can read the full interview at:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/29045477/mitchell-s-olympic-dream-still-alive/ plus check out another interview she did with Seven News last night at: https://au.totaltravel.yahoo.com/video/watch/29029338/mitchell-undergoes-surgery-ahead-of-olympics/
In the interview Lauren says:
“I must have had a lot of energy that day because all of my tumbles were really high,” Mitchell said.
“This particular tumble was a little bit too high and my timing was slightly off. I landed on a straight leg and it just went all the way back and sideways.
“But I didn’t think it was an ACL. Usually ACLs swell up straight away ... I could still walk, I could squat, I could straighten my knee.”
Mitchell went for scans that night, but wasn’t overly worried until she got the call with the bad news.
“I was just sitting on my bed and crying,” she said.
“Immediately I thought: ‘I just can’t do this again’.
“I was just thinking back to my shoulder (reconstruction after London in 2012) because that was a really long, slow process and it was tough to come back from.”
But two weeks after surgery, the 2010 floor world champion is determined to do everything in her power to be at a third Olympics.
Mitchell said she wanted to show the results of a new training program she had employed over the past 12 months — results she believes are good enough to make a final in Rio and give her a chance of an elusive Olympic medal.
Mitchell, 24, said the first surgeon she saw had been prepared to do a traditional reconstruction just days after she injured it.
But further consultation with WAIS staff and other surgeons led her to opt for the LARS procedure in the hope of getting back in six to eight months, rather than the 10-12 month lay-off of a traditional reconstruction.
“That was one of the toughest decisions to make,” she said. “Being at the end of my career, thinking about retirement, but then also thinking about my body.
“I wanted to go into next year with no regrets. I think if I went with just the pure hamstring surgery I would probably have the regret of ‘what if’.
“I still might not make it to Rio, but I’m going to give it everything.”
