Was it worth it?

[Hydroblade]

Well last night I was watching the worlds on T.V last night and I got to see highlights of the mens qualifyer. Now I watch Takeshi Honda start his program and the say he has a sprained ankle and he goes into his first quad and BANG he's down on the ice and not getting up.

Now here's my question

If you know your injured and have a very little chance of actully acheiving your best possible skate why would you compete at worlds? You could end even more injured and set off your whole countries hope of sending more skaters the following year. I'm sure your country could just send someone else.

So is it worth it?

[fadedstardust]

It depends. If you have a sprained ankle, you can still skate. I've won a gold medal one week after spraining (BADLY, with torn ligaments and the whole bit) my ankle- I just taped it up so that it couldn't move. If it's an injury you THINK you can work through, and if it's an injury that can't get significantly worse by skating/falling on it, then it's worth it. I mean, if you think you can skate well- and I'm sure Takeshi thought so, you're not letting your country down anymore than if you were HEALTHY and ended up screwing your program, which happens a lot. And if the injury isn't gonna get worse by skating on it, might as well work with what you've got. Evgeni, for example, is skating on a torn meniscus, which could snap at any moment. THAT is not a good idea, because if it snaps, you need surgery, and if you need surgery, it could set you back a lot longer than just healing it to begin with. But a sprained ankle...I'm not sure what the worst that could happen would be, but as long as you have strength in those ligaments and as long as you tape it to stabilize it, the worse that could happen, I guess, is more ligaments could be torn and it could get resprained. But then he wouldn't be too far off from where he started, so it's not much of a loss.

I think Takeshi did the right thing by skating. He has been skipping A LOT of events due to various injuries. Even though it ended badly, I think he had to do it for himself. Because even though skaters respect their federations (for the most part...), this is still an individual sport. You do it for your country, but at the end of the day, you have to do it for yourself. It might not have been best for Japan, but it was best for him, and that is what matters in my opinion. And it's not like Japan had that many good guys waiting in the wings to win a World championship if Takeshi faltered, I mean look at how badly Daisuke has been doing. If someone had beat Takeshi at Japanese Nationals, he wouldn't have been the one to go. So it's only fair.

[MannyisHOT]

Takeshi is now in a cast. Which sucks.

[Samskate]

Since a lot of doctors feel that a bad sprain is worse than a broken ankle, I think it's pretty dangerous to skate with one. Guess since he's now in a cast, he must have injured it further.

[fadedstardust]

But it's not a permanent or life-damaging injury- it WILL heal. And it won't take all that long, and it doesn't matter since now the season's over. A sprain can take just as long if not longer to get back to full strength as a broken bone can (I should know, I've had my share of sprains) and so what? Now he's in a cast, there's actually a better chance he'll heal quicker than if he'd skipped Worlds and let his sprain heal. What difference does it make if he is in a cast or not if he has to take a break in order to heal, anyway? A cast can only help his recovery be more beneficial. I don't see how it's such a tragedy. It's JUST a sprain/break. People do that to themselves everyday even off the ice, and they are fine. I think there's a big difference between skating with something dangerous (Irina's condition, Plush's torn knee ligament, Sasha's back...) than with a sprained ankle (Takeshi, Johnny Weir...) The odds of the latter causing life-long damage are slim to none. Sure, they exist, but I mean, if you're gonna be a skater, you run that risk even if you are skating healthy. Takeshi could just as well have broken his ankle by falling on a quad at Worlds if he had been healthy, y'know.

[Samskate]

I certainly don't want to get into an argument with anyone here, but I do believe if there are damaged ligaments or tendons along with a sprain, it can be a life-damaging injury. Maybe not enough to permanently disable, but enough to cause a skater to not be able to skate as well. I think the fact his ankle is in a cast speaks volumes. My husband broke his ankle very badly a few years ago and also had severely damaged ligaments and or tendons. It wasn't the break that kept him off his feet for three months, it was the ligaments and/or tendons. His doctor said if it had only been a break he would only have been off his feet for six weeks. He still has pain in that ankle.

[sue123]

As a veteran of many sprained ankle, and lately, several grade III ankle sprains, I can now regurgitate what my doctor has told me repeatedly. A sprained ankle never really heals. It's always going to be weaker. That is why there is a huge amount of PT that goes along with an ankle sprain, and trying to build up muscles and whatnot. Ask any doctor, they;ll tell you a break is actually better than a serious sprain, because breaks can heal, sprains not really.

Maybe takeshi figured it wouldn't be so bad because he'd be in a skate, which offers a lot of support and won't allow his foot to move. Or maybe he didn't think it was that bad. Whether it was worth it, I don't know. it depends on what he was thinking going into it, how he felt, and whatnot.

p.s.-fadedstardust, a sprained ankle by definition is a tear in one or more of the ligaments surrounding the ankle. What determines the severity of an ankle sprain is the degree the ligaments are torn and how many are torn.

based on what i've been told, if you tear just the first ligament that's in front of the ankle, those may swell and be painful at first, but they usually heal up nicely, even if it's completely torn. When it gets to be a problem is when the ligament on the side of the ankle, and the ligament in the back are torn. The second ligament takes a while to heal, and it may or may not heal completely. If you tear the third ligament, then those very rarely heal on their own. I don't know when he sprained his ankle, or how badly it was sprained. Maybe he only sprained the first ligament, putting him at a Grade I sprain, which he should have been able to skate on, albeit painfully. But maybe when he was doing his quad, he could have hit it with such a force that it further weakened the ankle, and then that put him into a cast. Without knowing the details, it;s hard to say whether it was worth it.
From

[fadedstardust]

Sue- thanks that was very informative. I am ashamed to say that despite having sprained the same ankle a bunch of times over the years, I didn't know that is all it was. I pictured something getting twisted and bent out of shape, instead of torn, and that tears could just happen with it. So it's good to know! I know that the second time I sprained it, I tore that side ligament. That's what was so difficult to get strength back for. Nonetheless I skated a week after it happened, and was back to my old self within a month and a half or so, though the pain lasted much longer. It really depends what kind of strengthening you do to it.

Here's to better health for our ankles, Sue. :)

[sue123]

Sue- thanks that was very informative. I am ashamed to say that despite having sprained the same ankle a bunch of times over the years, I didn't know that is all it was. I pictured something getting twisted and bent out of shape, instead of torn, and that tears could just happen with it. So it's good to know! I know that the second time I sprained it, I tore that side ligament. That's what was so difficult to get strength back for. Nonetheless I skated a week after it happened, and was back to my old self within a month and a half or so, though the pain lasted much longer. It really depends what kind of strengthening you do to it.

Here's to better health for our ankles, Sue. :)

well, the bending and twisting is what causes the tears. If it was a tendon you tore, then it would be a strain. It is difficult to get strength back. I want to be a doctor, so I tend to absorb the info they give me I guess. Also, since I volunteer at a hospital, they like to give me lots of info on my various injuries.

Since it's St Patty's day, I say we take a drink to healthy ankles. Knock on wood, skating so much has actually helped strengthen it after the latest sprain.