Saturday, May 30, 2009

Dasha Update

I know GA/WAIS are going to make an announcement about Dasha next week but the WA press have jumped the gun.

Many thanks to the correspondent who brought this to my attention.

I am not going to quote the article for teasers like I normally do. Some people might prefer to wait to see what gets said next week so you can choose to click through to the new piece, or you can choose not to.


We love you big time, Dasha. Stay strong.

12 comments:

nade00 said...

I admire her strength to not just give up. I hope she can come back so she doesn't have to remember the end of her career with this horrible incident.

On the upside, it will be nice to see some new faces taking centre stage at worlds. After Georgia, Lauren and Shona, assuming they are the front runners, Amber, Emma D and Mel J will probably duke it out for the last spot now.

Anonymous said...

It sounds like she is pretty determined to continue so that is a good sign. If she can get back to her best then she will be pretty valuable to Australia at nexts years CWG since England are likely to be strong.

Apparently at individual worlds each country can only have two AA competitors and only three on each apparatus. Shona and Georgia are probably the front runners for AA and Lauren of course on beam and possibly floor. So that may only leave bars and vault. So maybe Mel J if she has upgraded her second vault.

Anonymous said...

Lol. Are you saying Lauren is no longer an AA contender? Last year Mel, Ash and Dasha had higher SV Vaults (obviously), Olivia a more difficult UB, Highest SV Beam, and second to Dasha on Floor. A total SV of 24.6 (0.1 higher that Dasha)Her execution is clean (usually) and she has probably been upgrading as well. If there is an AA place on the team, Lauren would have to be a strong contender. Roll on Nationals, I Can't wait to see what everyone is doing!

Anonymous said...

I don't think anyone is saying Lauren is not an AA contender. It is just that there can only be two AAers at Worlds and considering Georgia and Shona did so well in Beijing they are likely to be the front runners. Since Lauren can do really well on Beam when she hits that is likely to be her best finish. Considering it is only a individual worlds it might benefit her to be a specialist. A lot could change after nationals. I think people are just putting their thoughts our there.

Anonymous said...

This has NOT restored my faith in Australian medicine and, in particular, sports medicine. I think it's absolutely disgraceful that an elite athlete like Dasha has had to wait almost a year before action is finally taken to correct the problem.

Luckily Nastia Liukin and Courtney Kupets had better care in the USA when they injured themselves.

Poor Dasha!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I was sort of thinking the same thing, it is a long time to wait. I understand the concept of healing naturally because if you don't have to operate then you are likely to have less problems later on. But I mean 9 and a half months they have waited. I think they should of given it a specific time to heal like 6 months of something and if it wasn't healed then they should have operated. That way she may have been some chance of competing this year. I was ready international gymnast forum and people there were saying it will take a year of recovery. But the article says that she will be out for the rest of the year and considering this year is nearly half over that could be very different. Getting her fitness back is likely to be the biggest problem and may take some time.

Mez said...

I was thinking that it would heopfully take a turn for the better in a Kupets-type situation, where the star of the team is sidelined for a prolonged period but comes back stronger and better than ever the next year.

DASHA FOR 2010 COMMONWEALTH, PACIFIC RIM AND WORLD CHAMPION!!!!

Anonymous said...

I hope you're right Mez and she does come back well. I wonder if GA/WAIS will still do an update on Dasha's condition now that its already known. I hope they do becaue hey might have some more information.

Anonymous said...

If she played footy she would have been back into it aaaaages ago

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I know, they get over there injuries much quicker because they are tended to straight away. No one would advise then to wait nine months for a ligament to heal. Dasha is probably be out of competition for a year and a half if she returns at all. It seems a bit ridiculous

Wolfie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wolfie said...

To whoever said that if Dasha was an Aussie footballer, she'd be back by now, I tend to agree with you. The motivation is different, of course - footballers are professional career athletes.

Motivation is, I think, the key here.

Something about Dasha's situation suggests to me that Dasha herself wanted or needed the break from high level training, and decided on the "natural healing" approach to give her more time. And if I'm right about this, I certainly wouldn't blame her for this at all. She has worked so hard for so long - she deserves some time out for a few months.

Let's face it: if Dasha wanted or needed to be competing by now - e.g. if the injury happened in late 2007 instead of 2008 - I bet they wouldn't have waited 9 whole months before proceeding with the necessary surgery. They simply wouldn't have had the luxury of waiting for a natural healing approach.

It's no fun having a long term injury that simply won't heal - I know this from recent personal experience, and I'm not an athlete! I seriously doubt any athlete, coach, parent or medic would wait this long - just to see if it would heal on its own - unless the athlete herself wasn't overly concerned about getting back to competitive shape in a hurry.

A professional footballer needs to be back on the field as quickly as possible. An elite gymnast, on the other hand, whose injury occured at the end of a quadrenium, just doesn't have that kind of pressure. And if she deserved or wanted a break from taining to catch her breath and decide on her future, there's really no hurry at all.

Maybe Dasha's injury is minor in the sense that it hasn't really impacted her personal life, except for preventing her from elite level training? I can fully understand why she wasn't breaking down the theatre doors demanding immediate surgery. :-)

Just my thoughts.