Welcome back to Sports Dive, today on the channel we are going to reveal the Gymnasts that almost died. In this sport, a tiny miscalculation can mean the difference between victory and catastrophe.
And as difficulty levels soar to new heights, so do the risks of serious injury. When Melanie Coleman, a gymnast at Southern Connecticut State University, died after falling off the uneven bars, veterans of the sport were stunned. “It’s just not something that anybody can process,” her longtime personal coach Thomas Alberti said.
An Olympic hopeful’s tragedy helps change the sport. At 15, Julissa Gomez was on track to pursue her dream of competing in the Olympics. But just months before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, she slipped on a springboard that was supposed to propel her over the vaulting horse — the table that vaulters bounce their hands off of before flipping in the air. Julissa’s head smashed into the horse, paralyzing her from the neck down. Three years later, the 18-year-old died of complications stemming from her injury. After Julissa’s crash, the International Gymnastics Federation started allowing U-shaped mats around the vaulting springboard, wrote Joan Ryan, author of the book “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes.” The Thomas salto — first performed by American Kurt Thomas — involved leaping into the air and performing 1 1/2 flips and 1 1/2 twists. But instead of landing on their feet, gymnasts landed upside down, rolling forward on the backs of their shoulders. In 1980, Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina was attempting a Thomas salto when she broke her neck and became paralyzed. The move has since been banned for both men and women in international competition. Watch till the end for more Gymnasts that almost died.