Such an unbelievable shame.
After winning four medals with the U.S. team during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Shawn Johnson has sadly been forced to announce her retirement only four days before four days before the start of the U.S. gymnastics championships, due to complications from a 2010 ski accident that left her ACL, MCL, meniscus and hamstring ravaged!
Although she was able to return to the sport and helped win her team a gold medal in the Pan American Games, apparently, increasing her training to prepare the 2012 games in London was just too much for surgically repaired knee, which ultimately lead to her decision to end her career.
She said in a statement yesterday:
“It just little by little gets worse and worse. My body is to the point where I need time to rest and retire so I can be healthy for the rest of my life. It’s hard to wrap my mind around. Gymnastics has been my entire life, and now it’s no more. It’s been a really hard decision. How can you tell yourself, ‘No, I think it’s time to say it’s finally done?’ I’d like to be 30 and have kids and run around with them. It became more about my future life than this future one moment. I’m looking at the bigger picture of things. It’s weird, for the first time in my career I came up short. But I feel like I succeeded as well. It almost came too easy the first time. It was a humbling experience this time around.”
Wow. Incredible to think that at the age of 20, this young woman has such an incredibly mature perspective about letting go of a sport that has obviously been such an integral part of her life.
Although it’s so sad to think that she has to say good-bye to gymnastics as such a young age, it’s also so important to remember how much she’s accomplished by now!
Go out and find a new passion, gurl!
You can do anything to which you set your mind!
[Image via WENN.]
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