Browse by category
You can also browse all blogs by category.
For those who like to keep up to date with the latest fashion trends I hear fracturing your tibia is now all the rage in Sweden. In a remarkable coincidence four of the Swedish athletics team have been sidelined with this very injury, seriously hindering their preparation for the 2009 season.
The four injured athletes are 400m runner Emma Agbonjer, hurdling twins Susanna and Jenny Kallur and heptathlon star Carolina Kluft. In the majority of cases sports competitors will suffer stress fractures as a result of the constant pressure placed upon their bones through repetitive training. Due to the nature of the training and competition stress fractures are more common in running than in any other sport and as all four athletes compete in running based events it is not altogether surprising they have suffered this injury.
Before discovering the fracture Carolina Kluft had finally come to her senses and returned to the heptathlon after deciding to drop it for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Instead of competing in the event she has dominated for over six years Kluft decided to focus on the long jump and triple jump.
Kluft was facing athletes who had specialised in these events for their whole career and predictably she finished well outside of the medals. Had she competed in the heptathlon it is fair to say she would have almost certainly won the gold medal or at least finished on the podium.
The severity of each athletes fracture varies from a number of months on the sidelines, such as with Kluft, to a full season and a potential operation, such as with Susanna Kallur. However they will all take heart from the recovery made by British long distance runner Paula Radcliffe. Radcliffe suffered a hip fracture earlier in the year but on her full return achieved emphatic victories in the Great British South Run and more recently the New York Marathon, where she won by a margin of just under two minutes.
However what makes these injuries so intriguing is that all four athletes are Swedish, female and train in the same location in southern Sweden. Is this a mere coincidence or is there a leg breaking fiend on the loose, terrorising Swedish female athletes? If it is the latter the Swedish Athletics Federation may wish to act sooner rather than later or face the 2009 season with half of their athletics team missing!
 | Author: | The Sports Nut (The Sports Nut's profile, The Sports Nut's blog) |
 | Posted On: | Wed, 2008-11-05 16:08 |
 | Tags: | running, distance running, exercise, fitness and injury |
 | Comments: | 0 comments, go to comments |
Comments