astro wrote:
I mean an unregistered commenter makes a claim, there are no supporting details, and an interview we have from July 8th makes no reference to it at all and makes clear that she is training and looking forward to the season. I call bs.
Well, there are certain things that are in OP's favor (him speaking the truth).
1) Tuohy had a reoccurring knee injury since 2018. She had to miss races in late 2018, and then miss an entire summer of training in 2019. That's also why NXN was very hard to win for her last year, despite being the highest talent by far.
2) She ran 15:37 5000m (i), and many other outstanding times as young girl. You can assume that she trained quite hard to reach these times, and was pushing her body constantly to the limit. At one point, something is going to break, and her knee already was an issue multiple times.
3) She did not post anything on social media (Instagram) since Feb 15 this year, outside of a graduation pic. All other runners were posting training during Covid, or core workouts, etc.. A LOT of them did time trials. Tuohy has been a rather shy person and not active on social media in general, but it's another reason that maybe the last few months didn't include much running.
If she really was/is injured for multiple months and unable to train (surgery or not), it's probably the best to let others know. Otherwise there will be even more criticism if she underperforms in the first races, and people don't know that she was actually injured for half a year and maybe even underwent a drastic surgery.
I hope as much as you that it's nothing serious and she didn't lose much training time, but OP's statement (long injury/training break/surgery) seems to have a decent possibility, unfortunately.