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Sunday, August 17, 2008
Trotter runs despite the pain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beijing — The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, so much so that Beijing hoped to create some good karma by opening the Olympics on 8-8-08 at 8:08 p.m. Michael Phelps isn’t arguing. He just won eight gold medals.
But Dee Dee Trotter? She’s probably more into numerology, where eight sometimes is considered the number of destruction.
Phelps just completed his dream Olympics.
Trotter just passed through the alternate universe.
Three weeks before the U.S. trials, her car door sprung back and slammed into her knee. Despite significant knee damage, the former gold medal winner out of Cedar Grove High somehow made the Olympic team any way. Then she arrived in China, only to discover her luggage was still in Atlanta.
At some point, she should’ve taken the hint.
A few minutes before her semifinal race of the 400 Sunday, Trotter was still in a dressing room, as trainers desperately tried to make her knee not feel like someone was taking a jackhammer to it. She finally came out, ran the race and finished in seventh.
Anybody who wanted to demoralize eighth-place finisher Nwal Eljack of Sudan only needed to tell her that she lagged behind someone who’s about to have major knee surgery.
A bone chip will be removed from Trotter’s left knee soon. There’s also a good possibility that doctors will replace a portion of the knee with bone from a cadaver.
Expected length of rehab: nine months. Eight, if she’s lucky.
At least she gets to keep the cool warm-ups. And think of all those air miles.
“I actually feel fortunate that I even made it here,” Trotter said. “If there was any year where I wasn’t going to make the Olympic team, this was it. I could’ve been sitting at home, wrapped and braced.”
She’ll be there soon enough. Sudden recovery aside, she’s not going to run in a relay for the United States.
“I’d love to win a gold medal,” she said, “but I’m not going to be selfish and put the team at risk.”
Trotter was joined in Beijing by her mother. You can’t miss her. She’s the nice lady with the broken ankle. It seems she recently stumbled while walking down the stairs. The whole family needs to go on a cruise.
“We look like two Humpty Dumptys,” Trotter said.
Do they give out gold medals for simply enduring?
Trotter won a gold medal in Athens on the 4x400 relay team. Last year, she upset her teammate, Sanya Richards, the Olympic gold medal favorite, in the World Outdoor Championships. She was a legitimate medal possibility in Beijing until she was in her garage in Knoxville, opened the car door to get out, stuck out her left leg and the door sprung back. An MRI revealed the bone chip. The bone chip led to swelling. The swelling led to a plan.
“We went into NFL mode,” she said. “It was like, ‘OK, we need to get ready to play.’ “
She and doctors planned a six-week schedule of daily intensive treatment to lead up to the track competition. The six-week plan worked for three weeks.
Trotter had surprisingly qualified at the trials with a time of 50.88 — three seconds faster than she had been running a week earlier. The knee didn’t feel great but she was managing.
“It was like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound,” she said.
On Monday, Trotter said she ran a 150-meter sprint in 16.8 seconds, a personal best. The next morning, the knee grew a grapefruit out the side. The past few days have been a struggle. Trotter almost didn’t make it out of the preliminary round Saturday. On Sunday, she almost didn’t make it off the training table.
“Until Tuesday, I thought I was ready to roll,” she said. “Then things started going downhill and I just started falling apart.”
There is good news. The luggage arrived after a few days. Lucky her.
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