Jana Pittman injury

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It is amazing the difference 24 hours can make.
I saw her on the news on Sunday night and she was devestated after being told she was out for 4 months :eek: and her Olympic chances gone. Last night they showed her throwing her crutches away and limping from hospital after keyhole surgery and claiming a 60% chance of competing.

Jana back on track for gold
Scott Gullan
London
10aug04

JANA Pittman took another giant stride towards fulfilling her Olympic dream yesterday when a surgeon gave her the thumbs up after a post-operation check on her injured knee.

Pittman described the turnaround in her fortunes as a miracle.

“It’s been an amazing ride, and I am still coming to terms with it,” said the world champion hurdler.

"I am just so lucky because I thought it was over. But I’m back in the game now and I have to do everything to get on that starting line.

"I just want to run. This is all I have dreamed of, getting to the Olympics and wearing the green and gold.

“It honestly feels like I have packed six weeks into two days. I am catching myself having a giggle just out of the blue when I start thinking about what has happened.”

Pittman’s Olympic resurrection will involve spending the next three days lying in bed meditating, with her repaired knee elevated and in ice.

After a whirlwind 24 hours, in which arthroscopic surgery boosted her chances of running in Athens from virtually zero to 60 per cent, Pittman admitted she was still spinning. Her confidence was boosted by a positive post-op check-up with surgeon Fares Haddad.

“I am healing so quickly, the swelling has already gone down,” Pittman said. "The knee is much more stable and I have already had really, really good movement.

“He is still really, really positive, but the key thing is now to get rid of the inflammation, because the one thing that is going to stop me from going to the Olympics is if it gets inflamed.”

Pittman iced the knee four times during the night and is taking a combination of herbal remedies recommended by her mentor Debbie Flintoff-King.

She also must inject herself with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Pittman meditated for 2 1/2 hours after Sunday’s operation, and yesterday had an extensive healing massage before flying to the Australian team camp in Varese, Italy, where she will spend the next few days.

With the opening round of the 400m hurdles heats in 11 days, she hopes to be jogging by the weekend.

“It is already like a miracle, and I really believe it has got to be all the positive energy that is being directed from everyone back home saying their prayers and sending good vibes,” she said.

“The next week is going to be really hard but I have to just stay really positive.”

Pittman has spoken to coach Phil King about changing her stride pattern in the opening rounds to help keep pressure off the injured right knee.

Her phone has run hot with messages from well-wishers back home.

She received a special boost from a short conversation with world champion skier Alisha Camplin.

“She suffered a similar injury two weeks out from the Games and came out and won. Everyone is being so positive, it is just awesome,” Pittman said.

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See she won her heat to qualify for semis :smiley:

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i believe it was mostly media hype and she used it to her advantage to psyche out her oponents

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You don’t go out and have surgery to psyche people out!

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Since her injury she has actually seemed to be happier, laughing and smiling in the media where usually she is more intense. Now a lot of the pressure and expectation has been released she seems happy just to be running.

I hope she can squeeze in for a medal. She deserves it for all the hard work she has done.

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Surgery is very serious of course … but perhaps in a funny way it has removed a particlaur kind of pyschological pressure from her shoulders?

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Or, more likely, pain from her knee!

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Only if the surgeon had her the wrong way up!

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If that is the case her reaction when she was told she was out for 4 months was deserving of an Oscar :eek: Also she injured it warming up at Zurich (?) I would have thought the race there was more important than an almighty pschye out. IMHO the whole thing would be more of a distraction for her and not worth it. I may be wrong though :eek: I have been 2 other times in my life :smiley:

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the surgeon who performed the op said it was an old injury the tear…i believe she just sprained it in her track mishap…but what i said was media hype…minor surgery for soooo much hype here in australia and everyone else has jumped on her “amazing recovery” bandwagon. Let’s not forget they didn’t do a full knee reco here!!

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You have taken me the wrong way sorry… she had a second opinion that the surgeon actually said it was an “existing” injury and proceeded to shave away some of the old tear. So from one or two days to the next the australian media has made it out to be jesus reborn.

Everyone not from australia, how much has she appeared on your national or local tv? i bet not as much here!!

Over the last year since the world champs jana has built herself up so much her in australia, especially in her home state. Luckily this probably has done her the world of good. I’m not saying an injury was faked, but the media has made it look way worse than it was…she has just qualified for the final for chr$%t sakes!!

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sorry last post!!

Zurich important? obviously not to current world record holder and usa girl who was named 2nd favourite!!

I am banking on her getting gold for australia though!! she is paying 4-1 her in australia

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She has got quite a bit of coverage here (NZ) since the injury but to be honest before then I had never heard of her. :eek:

Yeah saw she qualified for the final, don’t know about gold but think she will medal.

Re the existing injury, haven’t heard/seen that reported but why let the full facts get in the way of a good story :smiley:

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greek girl has come from no where. jumps hurdles quicker than her 400m flat i think

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Emotion cost me Athens medal: Pittman
By Paul Mulvey
Manchester
June 3, 2005

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Jana Pittman blames her own over-emotional personality for the injury that cost her a shot at an Olympic medal last year.

After her Olympic drama was played out so tearfully last year, Pittman says never again will she let her emotions rule her athletics.

Australia’s 400 metres hurdles world champion was a gold medal favourite leading up to the Athens Olympics until she tore cartilage in her right knee while warming up at the Zurich Golden League meeting two weeks before the Games.

The new, level-headed Pittman has revealed she stretched herself too far in the warm-up. “I was disappointed with myself with the warm-up in Zurich. I was very emotional that night in Zurich,” she said on Wednesday.

"I had run a really quick time a couple of nights before and Debbie Flintoff-King had flown in that night to see me hopefully break her Australian record. I was really pumped up, I felt phenomenal.

"I felt so good I pushed my hurdles out too far. There’s a drill in warm-up when you put the hurdles four feet apart. I felt so . . . pumped up, I put them five feet apart and I injured my knee.

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Advertisement"Now I wouldn’t do it. I’d be more clinical, not so emotional - it would be ‘don’t get carried away, check, do the drill, check, run, go to the Olympics’."

Now based at Loughborough University in England’s midlands where she is coached by her fiance, British hurdler Chris Rawlinson, her new environment has given Pittman a new outlook.

“In the past, I have had quite an emotional campaign. For years I would run on passion and belief,” she said. "Now it’s the real stuff, it’s more black and white now.

“Before it was if you put in enough effort and you really want it, you can win. Now we train harder and are better prepared than anyone else and deserve to win.”

Pittman, 22, split with her coach Phil King after the Olympics last year to be with Rawlinson. Pittman says he has given her more freedom and responsibility in a training environment where she is surrounded by world-ranked athletes.

Pittman defied the odds and made a remarkable recovery to finish fifth in the Olympic final and her focus this year is to defend her world title in Helsinki in August.

Meanwhile, three-time Olympic champion Marion Jones was slow out of the blocks and finished runner-up to Chandra Sturrup in Milan on Wednesday for the second time in four days.

The champion, who has been shadowed by doping allegations for the past year, ran 11.67 seconds in the 100 metres to finish a quarter of a second behind the Bahamian at the Grand Prix Regione Lombardia meeting.

  • AAP, AP
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I hope Rawlinson really knows what he is doing (though Nick Dakin appears to most of the coaching).

Physically Jana looks in good shape. At the recent Loughborough international she ran pretty good though over 2 seconds off her best but she definitly wasn’t “in the zone” for that race. You could tell she wasn’t concentrating but it is great that she actually turned up to run and give the home crowd something good to watch.

She is a really nice girl, more down to earth than I would have expected. We will see how “black and white” compares to “passion” in Helsinki.

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From what you’ve seen, what’s your take on this?

Thanks!