Olympia / MTB News: Sabine Spitz will be at the start of tomorrow's women's MTB race in Rio. Immediately before the start of the games, the German top athlete and medal candidate suffered an open injury on her knee, which subsequently became infected and required surgery. After a long back and forth, the BDR announced today that Spitz would start tomorrow, but at the same time referred to the concerns of the medical department, which had advised the 44-year-old against starting.
The Olympic Games are undoubtedly one of the great highlights of a professional athlete's career. Missing the chance to participate or even a medal is simply out of the question for most athletes. Sabine Spitz also wants to get back on the podium at all costs at what will probably be her last Olympic Games - as she did in her three previous participations, in which she each won bronze (Athens, 2004), silver (London, 2012) and gold (Beijing, 2008 ) could win.
The fact that she injured her knee at this point in the season was unfortunate, as the wound became infected afterwards, which was a disaster. The medical team tried everything in the past few days to get Spitz fit for the competition and her participation was on the brink right up until the end. Now the twelve-time German champion has decided to take part - against the advice of her doctors. "Despite the lowered inflammation values, the doctors consider their start to be questionable because they fear that the inflammation will get out of control under stress. The risk is borne by the athlete herself." the BDR announced to the German Press Agency.
Her husband and manager Ralf Schäuble downplays the concerns, even if he naturally cannot dismiss the impairment caused by the injury: "The inflammation values have fallen further, Sabine feels good. The conditions are certainly not ideal, but she is a fighter.”
The women's MTB race starts tomorrow at 17:30 p.m. You can find a link to the live stream on Velomotion.
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