Can Jana Pittman still win an Olympic medal?

[injuryupdate]

Can Jana still win a medal at the Olympics?

From AAP:

Pittman team clings to hope
By Sharon Mathieson
August 7, 2004

JANA Pittman's coach vowed to do whatever was needed to get the medal hopeful's Olympic dream back on track today after a devastating knee injury this morning threatened to leave it in tatters.

The world champion hurdler will find out tomorrow if she must undergo surgery on her injured knee before the Athens Games, but the prognosis to date is bad.

Pittman tore the lateral meniscus in her right knee in a freak accident during the warm-up for the 400 metres hurdles at the prestigious Zurich Golden League, her last competition before the Olympics.

She was rushed to hospital for x-rays and a MRI scan of her knee which revealed the damage.

The 21-year-old will meet with an orthopeadic surgeon tomorrow, who will assess the extent of the injury and decide whether Pittman needs arthroscopic surgery.

Either way, Pittman faces a desperate race against time, with the first round of her event on August 21, just two weeks away.

Coach Phil King said everything possible would be done to keep alive any hope of her running in Athens.

"If we have to go to England or somewhere to do it (surgery), we'll do whatever it takes to give Jana every possible chance of recovering from this setback," he said.

Earlier today, when asked if she could still make the Olympics, he replied: "I don't know.

"The bottom line is that the news isn't good."

Pittman's pre-Olympic campaign has been besieged by dramas, including a disastrous false start in her first race of the European season, technical stutters in her next race and a shock defeat last weekend.

But all was supposed to fall into place in Zurich.

"I was so pumped up, I'd had a good day, I was so relaxed and I was so ready to run and it's the excitement and the adrenaline that makes you upset," Pittman told Channel 7 before she realised the extent of her injury.

She left the stadium on crutches and in tears, but was determined she would be ready for the Olympics.

"I just need to keep my head, and my emotions," Pittman said.

"Debbie (Flintoff-King) arrived today and I'm sure she'll be really good for it."

Pittman adores Flintoff-King, who won Olympic gold in 1988 in extraordinary circumstances after her sister Noelene died of a heart attack induced by asthma two days before the Australian team left for Seoul.

The most frustrating thing for Pittman was there was no explanation for her injury today. It was simply a freak accident.

"It was the most innocuous thing of all time. It's something she's done 10,000 times before in training. There's no rhyme nor reason," King said.

"She was doing a drill that she does every time she races, every time she warms up.

"Her leg was just going over the hurdle ... and the leg that was going over the hurdle just went.

"She just landed on that leg and collapsed a little bit.

"Something you'd expect a geriatric like me to do, not an elite athlete like Jana Pittman, for God's sake.

"My heart goes out to her, she is in the best shape of her life, physically and mentally she's very, very focused on doing well and you've got to feel very, very sorry for Jana Pittman because she's such a committed athlete and she's worked her heart and soul for this."

Pittman refused to accept her years of hard work for one race had come to a devastating end.

"I know I can do it, I'll be back, I'll be strong, I'll be ready," she said.

"I'll be in secret, no-one will know how good a shape I'm in and I've just got to have faith and keep strong."

She took some hope from fellow hurdler Chris Rawlinson from Great Britain, who completely tore his lateral meniscus and was back competing six weeks later. However, Pittman has only two weeks.

"Time is a big factor and it's certainly not on our side at the moment, but while there is time we've got to keep doing everything we possibly can," King said.

Meanwhile Prime Minister John Howard sent his wishes for a speedy recovery.

"I know that all Australians will be concerned," he said.

"She's a wonderful athlete and a wonderful person and a great representative of our country and we all hope that she'll get better quickly and be ready."

[Grater]

Can Jana still win a medal at the Olympics?

From AAP:

Pittman team clings to hope
By Sharon Mathieson
August 7, 2004

JANA Pittman's coach vowed to do whatever was needed to get the medal hopeful's Olympic dream back on track today after a devastating knee injury this morning threatened to leave it in tatters.

The world champion hurdler will find out tomorrow if she must undergo surgery on her injured knee before the Athens Games, but the prognosis to date is bad.

Pittman tore the lateral meniscus in her right knee in a freak accident during the warm-up for the 400 metres hurdles at the prestigious Zurich Golden League, her last competition before the Olympics.

She was rushed to hospital for x-rays and a MRI scan of her knee which revealed the damage.

The 21-year-old will meet with an orthopeadic surgeon tomorrow, who will assess the extent of the injury and decide whether Pittman needs arthroscopic surgery.

Either way, Pittman faces a desperate race against time, with the first round of her event on August 21, just two weeks away.

Coach Phil King said everything possible would be done to keep alive any hope of her running in Athens.

"If we have to go to England or somewhere to do it (surgery), we'll do whatever it takes to give Jana every possible chance of recovering from this setback," he said.

Earlier today, when asked if she could still make the Olympics, he replied: "I don't know.

"The bottom line is that the news isn't good."

Pittman's pre-Olympic campaign has been besieged by dramas, including a disastrous false start in her first race of the European season, technical stutters in her next race and a shock defeat last weekend.

But all was supposed to fall into place in Zurich.

"I was so pumped up, I'd had a good day, I was so relaxed and I was so ready to run and it's the excitement and the adrenaline that makes you upset," Pittman told Channel 7 before she realised the extent of her injury.

She left the stadium on crutches and in tears, but was determined she would be ready for the Olympics.

"I just need to keep my head, and my emotions," Pittman said.

"Debbie (Flintoff-King) arrived today and I'm sure she'll be really good for it."

Pittman adores Flintoff-King, who won Olympic gold in 1988 in extraordinary circumstances after her sister Noelene died of a heart attack induced by asthma two days before the Australian team left for Seoul.

The most frustrating thing for Pittman was there was no explanation for her injury today. It was simply a freak accident.

"It was the most innocuous thing of all time. It's something she's done 10,000 times before in training. There's no rhyme nor reason," King said.

"She was doing a drill that she does every time she races, every time she warms up.

"Her leg was just going over the hurdle ... and the leg that was going over the hurdle just went.

"She just landed on that leg and collapsed a little bit.

"Something you'd expect a geriatric like me to do, not an elite athlete like Jana Pittman, for God's sake.

"My heart goes out to her, she is in the best shape of her life, physically and mentally she's very, very focused on doing well and you've got to feel very, very sorry for Jana Pittman because she's such a committed athlete and she's worked her heart and soul for this."

Pittman refused to accept her years of hard work for one race had come to a devastating end.

"I know I can do it, I'll be back, I'll be strong, I'll be ready," she said.

"I'll be in secret, no-one will know how good a shape I'm in and I've just got to have faith and keep strong."

She took some hope from fellow hurdler Chris Rawlinson from Great Britain, who completely tore his lateral meniscus and was back competing six weeks later. However, Pittman has only two weeks.

"Time is a big factor and it's certainly not on our side at the moment, but while there is time we've got to keep doing everything we possibly can," King said.

Meanwhile Prime Minister John Howard sent his wishes for a speedy recovery.

"I know that all Australians will be concerned," he said.

"She's a wonderful athlete and a wonderful person and a great representative of our country and we all hope that she'll get better quickly and be ready."

I'm not being mean here, but it woudln't surprise me if the seriousness of the injury was put on so if she does win gold, it will be bigger for her and if she doesn't, well she has an excuse why she didn't. Personally Jana is up herself and wants the attention. Having not seen the MRI scan and her knee herself, I am not sure of the extent of the damage but it wouldn't surprise me if this whole issues seriousness is put on. This whole situation is suss considering the latest developments.

[Jim Rancoon]

I thought it was suss when they wheeled out the surgeon to address the media and he was named Dr. Nick Riviera .................................................. ..............................................."Hi everybody!"

[injuryupdate]

The media attention is just what the athletics team needed, because if Jana doesn't win a gold medal, they need some sort of excuse (because it looks as though no one else can).

Despite this story being used to great advantage by the marketing department of the Olympic team, it seems pretty genuine. That is, the injury was acute, unexpected and a major setback. It definitely wouldn't have been a 'put-on' for the media because it will be a significant disadvantage for her performance.

It goes to show that personalities can't please everyone. Tiger Woods and Peter Sampras is/was perceived as boring because they don't show enough emotion, whereas Jana is getting criticism for being hysterical because she is showing a lot of emotion.

Athletes who trash-talk other athletes like Mundine are unpopular, whereas those who speak in only cliches again get criticised for being unimaginative.

Jana is a shot in the arm for the Australian Olympic team and I will be cheering her as hard as anyone this Olympics.

[injuryupdate]

Good summary of other athletes who have returned early from knee surgery to compete (quoting this site):

Recovery time the big hurdle
By Richard Yallop
August 10, 2004

AMONG the well-wishers willing Jana Pittman to a miraculous recovery from her knee repair operation yesterday was the Sydney Swans' 23-year-old Irish star Tadhg Kennelly, who knows exactly how she is feeling.

At a Wednesday night training session in March, Kennelly was tackled by Swans captain Stuart Maxfield and his knee suddenly locked. The following day, orthopedic surgeon Tim Musgrove diagnosed damage to the meniscus, the knee cartilage that acts as a shock absorber between the femur and the tibia. It is the meniscus cartilage that Pittman tore during her warm-up for last Friday's pre-Olympic meet in Zurich.

The previous record for a Swans player recovering from a meniscus repair operation was the 11 days it took Leo Barry in April 2001.

Kennelly vowed to beat the record after being told he would have surgery. Within a week of having 85 per cent of his meniscus removed, he was running, and three days later he was back playing for the Swans.

Pittman has to line up for her first 400m hurdles heat in 11 days.

"The minute I was told I'd have the operation I said, 'I'm aiming to play in 10 days,"' Kennelly told The Australian. "I'm sure Jana felt the same and decided as soon as she'd had the operation that she would run the heat in the Olympics.

"If it's exactly the same as mine, there's no problem with competing, but she won't be 100 per cent. I came back in 10 days, but the knee was very sore for six to eight weeks. It swelled up after the operation and needed to be iced round the clock. But the other components of her body will be the problem. The first day back, my quadricep muscle was cramping.

"What's going on in her head, and how confident she feels, are the main things. If the medical staff around her keep reiterating she's fine, she'll be OK. She's unlikely to be the favourite to win gold, but you never know."

Sydney Swans club doctor Nathan Gibbs predicts that, if all goes well, as it did with Kennelly, Pittman will be running in 10 days.

"But the question is whether she'll be able to run at the elite level she needs," he says.

That opinion is widely shared by orthopedic surgeons with experience treating sports injuries.

Although arthroscopic surgery has produced vast improvements in recovery time from knee surgery -- on average cutting the three to four months needed after the old open knee surgery to three to four weeks -- most surgeons doubt whether Pittman will be able to regain the peak fitness needed to reach an Olympic final, let alone win the gold medal.

One Melbourne surgeon is reluctant to comment because of the lack of clear information about the nature of Pittman's injury.

But, based on his experience of operating on footballers and athletes, he says: "I'd be amazed if she could run at Olympic level because she's lost a week's training. I think she will be able to compete, but it's unlikely she will be able to produce a personal best.

"Footballers can afford to be less than 100 per cent fit, but athletes going for an Olympic gold can't. I'd be amazed if she won a gold medal."

The revolution in treating knee injuries came with the introduction of arthroscopic surgery in the early 1980s. Instead of cutting open the knee and causing extensive disruption of tissue, surgeons made a small keyhole incision that minimised the local tissue damage, and sped up recuperation.

It meant that in most cases people needed to be in hospital for only a day, instead of a week; they were not required to wear a plaster cast or spend several weeks on crutches. Crutches became optional and people could be walking comfortably within a week.

One of the first successes of the new technique was South Sydney rugby league player Mitch Brennan, who came back from knee surgery after only 10 days in April 1982.

Royal Melbourne Hospital director of orthopedic surgery Richard de Steiger says the main benefit of arthroscopic surgery is that it allows quick rehabilitation. "But to get people back on the field they would need to be pumped full of local anaesthetic, such as lignocaine, and anti-inflammatories," he says.

Apart from reducing pain and swelling, keyhole surgery allows the athlete to return quicker to training, before muscle wastage has developed. It was that wastage of the quad muscle that Kennelly experienced after his knee operation and only a few days' break from training.

Rugby league five-eighth Adam Dykes holds the record for recovery from a meniscus tear operation. In September 2001, playing in Cronulla's final game of the season, he tore the cartilage in the knee. On Monday night orthopedic surgeon Merv Cross operated to repair the knee and four days later, on Friday night, Dykes played in the team that beat the Brisbane Broncos in the semi-final.

"I ran really well on the Friday morning so they let me play," Dykes says. "Because of the importance of the game, I probably rushed it. But playing football is a lot different from running. One hundredth of a second makes a difference to an athlete; mine was only a footie game."

Cross is cautiously optimistic about Pittman. "She has a similar sort of injury to Adam Dykes," he says. "If there's not a lot of swelling in the next 48 hours, she'll be all right.

"But the problem is that the quadriceps, which control the knee mechanism, weaken if they are not used and athletes need them to push off. If the quad hasn't been used for a day, it takes seven days to get it back."

Julian Feller, orthopedic surgeon for the Collingwood and Essendon Australian football clubs, as well as several middle-distance athletes, says that the 10-day recoveries are still the exception.

"Footballers don't usually come back in two weeks," he says. "It depends on the pathology. If you're pulling out a loose fragment, recovery can be very quick. Ten days is remarkable.

"But most people would predict four to six weeks for a normal recovery in a young, healthy person for a typical cartilage operation."

John Orchard, the doctor for the Sydney Roosters and NSW rugby league teams, believes it will be hard for Pittman to match Dykes's 2001 record of competing four days after knee arthroscopy. He says football players can compete when they are 80 per cent fit and their team-mates can make up the difference.

Orchard, who helps compile an injury-update website, says: "An elite track athlete, at anything less than 95per cent fitness, is not going to be able to qualify for the finals of an Olympic event. A comparison between footballers and track athletes can be seen with respect to hamstring strains, where football players miss two to three weeks on average for strains, whereas 100m sprinters will miss eight to 10 weeks with similar injuries."

The only good news for Pittman, according to Orchard, is that she was probably going to taper her training anyway during the next two weeks (meaning she would train lightly to be fresh for the Olympics).

"The likely outcome for Jana is that she can probably make the final after surgery, but her chances of winning the gold medal have taken a huge tumble," he says.

"However, they aren't zero, so it will be a fascinating watch and wait."

[injuryupdate]

Interesting that Michael Voss of the Brisbane Lions was quoted yesterday as saying that Jana should have her knee injected with local anaesthetic for the races she must compete in during the Games. Voss controversially had his knee injected with local for last year's AFL finals series (in which he successfully played and contributed to Brisbane's Premiership). The controversy is not in the illegality of the procedure (in both AFL and Olmypics this is legal - only sport that bans it is rugby union) but in the long-term danger. Having anaesthetic in the knee increases risk of long-term cartilage damage and ultimately arthritis. Even a year down the track, Voss is very happy with the outcome and would recommend it to Jana.

[Monica]

Just curious (and it's been bugging me for a few days now...) is Jana's op just a quick fix? What I mean by that is, will she need further invasive therapies after the Olympics? I don't know if the op is the end of the story for the injury, or if there'll be more involved... can someone please tell me?

Thanks,
Mon

[injuryupdate]

Without being inside the knee (or seeing the video) no one really knows how bad this injury is, with respect to long-term problems.

Given that a famed poll allegedly found that a high percentage of athletes would literally be prepared to die at 40 if guaranteed an Olympic Gold medal win, Jana won't be too worried about long-term damage to her knee. All she will care about is getting to the starting blocks.

[Grater]

Some good points have been raised! I just don't believe she could get up and run the race.

Time will tell.

[Grater]

What sort of tear are they saying?

I've had two ACL reconstructions on the same knee within 24 months of each other. With that, I also had a torn Lateral meniscus.

The first time around with my meniscus I had a radial tear of to posterior horn off memory. Also a torn MCL and LCL.

The second time around when I had my next ACL reconstruction 24 months after my first, my lateral meniscus this time was torn right up in the middle and was dislodged off the bone. My medial meniscus was also torn and the MCL and LCL were loose.

So those are the two Lateral meniscus tears I have had. So do you know what sort of tear Jana's is or does that go in the comment of no one knows how serious the injury is?

[injuryupdate]

I read somewhere a 3mm tear of lateral meniscus, which sounds minor, but then read that there was some loose material floating in the knee, which sounds like a chondral lesion, which is a lot worse.

Definitely can't be too bad since they are talking about her being able to compete. All of the cases of players in football rushing back (Dykes, Kennelly etc.) seem to be isolated meniscal tears. However, i doubt any of these players would have run a PB in their 400m time trial 14 days after the surgery.

[Monica]

... And on that note, what is the policy on free advertising?

[injuryupdate]

Swifty has definitely tried to manipulate a lot of links to the website. I can't even get through to their Forum though.

Couldn't be bothered to delete all of these messages, since most of them said something relevant to the post. If they were simply advertisments without any relevance to the thread then we would delete them. Same goes for anything grossly offensive or defamatory (to people still alive - Flo-Jo is fair game). Other than that, it is a good think that message boards give a lot of lattitude.

[N.Said]

For a hot inflamed joint - try Vioxx.

Vioxx the NSAID of champions.

For a bonus offer, for every over perscription we will give you a new golf club. Earn the whole set in as little as 8 months.

[N.Said]

Safe for the whole family too.