Steffensen undergoes surgery
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By Mike Hurst
May 21, 2008 12:00am
MEDAL hope John Steffensen has had emergency surgery to remove his appendix while training in the US - just three months out from the Beijing Games.
Steffensen, a member of the "silver bullets’’ 4x400m relay team who ran second at the last Olympics, is the key to Australia’s chances of another relay medal in August.
But this is a significant setback to Steffensen, if only in terms of managing the time-line to achieve his peak performance in time for Beijing.
The surgery may have put Steffensen a full second off the pace he might reasonably have expected to be running at this time of year.
The Commonwealth 400m champion from Sydney had been scheduled to compete in his first international race of the year two days ago in Los Angeles, but his name was withdrawn last week from the starting list without explanation.
However, his manager at IMG, Chris Giannopoulis, said yesterday Steffensen was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital for surgery on May 3.
"He had been in pain for a couple of days and went to see a doctor who said the appendix had to come out immediately, so I assume it was in danger of bursting,’’ Giannopoulis told The Daily Telegraph.
"But he told me he returned to training on May 7, obviously not at full intensity though. That’s why he was still hopeful of racing last Sunday, but the medical guys pulled him out. The doctor said, `Is there really a desperate need for you to compete?’’’
Steffensen hopes to race in June. "He’s not in doubt for the Olympics, not at all,’’ Giannopoulis added.
However, Steffensen can take some heart from history which shows that Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila retained the Olympic marathon title in Tokyo in 1964 in a then world record time - less than six weeks after having his appendix removed.
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