How dumb was wayde van niekerk?

rugby would be a lot more interesting if the ball was not so big and unwieldy. The runner can't do much carrying that thing. Give them a more sensible American football.

....I agree it wasn't wise, but

a) he wasn't playing rugby

b) he was doing it because of sponsor commitments

It probably cost him 2 x commonwealth golds, 3 x WC golds, 1 x OG gold and a sub 43 WR

Okay he wasn't playing rugby as we see it happening right now at the World Cup but he was playing touch rugby (same as flag football for Americans) - and that in itself is actually even more dangerous with respect to ligaments and tendons because you start doing moves to completely avoid contact (stuff like crazy cutting, juking etc) - rather than be fine initiating it.

You know the real f-up there? Whoever let him wear the cleats he wore that day. As with all modern cleat designs, so dangerous for players used to making extreme lateral movements, let alone a guy who trained his entire athletic life doing the complete opposite. He could have played in his sponsor commitment event - but had he been wearing a pair of trainers he would have had no issues. No feet getting locked into the ground and hips/body moving in other directions.

As for what it cost him? Considerable $$$ in appearance and bonus money, certainly multiple medals and major events and hey, if anyone was breaking 43 seconds it was going to be him. It was a bad one, no doubt.

Never think dumb and WVN.

Has anyone ever heard of an injury that takes 4 years to heal or recover from?

Plenty of other running related problems I can think of that do require 4 year hiatus .

Typical ACL recovery 6 to 9 months just by the way for those of you who know nothing about running and related injures.

ACL is not really an injury related to, or affecting, running. You can run (in straight lines, no sudden twisting or turning) on torn knee ligaments including ACL well before they are fully healed. But not in the first few weeks after the injury.

my MCL took over a year - about 14 months - to fully heal. that was with no surgery. I took about 2 weeks off after the injury and ran on it pretty much as normal after that. perhaps if I'd rested more it'd have healed faster.

i injured that playing football (the football where you kick the ball, not throw it). i started playing football again recently but now I don't slide into tackles anymore because I'm scared of reinjuring it.

at his level, it was stupid. at my level, I enjoy football, so I play it alongside running and manage the risk.

Manuel Neuer - German goalkeeper, broke his leg whilst skiing, also pretty stupid.

If you take HGH. Which would mean a ban, probably

Exactly. You can’t be too hard on him. Also has the OP ever heard of another sprinter called Usain Bolt by chance? He would often be spotted out playing a game called soccer which he had a bit of a love and flair for during his career. A lot of sprinters and other sporting people would have all tried their hand at another sport from time to time during their running career. Wayde just got extremely unlucky.

It was an Olympic injury.

do you mean olimpic

I remember reading (but cant find a source) that Usain Bolt had his legs insured for some completely absurd amount of money, like tens of millions, in case something happened to him. Wayde hopefully had something similar

thesun.co.uk

Mo Farah has his legs insured for £7million over horror tackle fears

https://www.facebook.com/sunsportdesk

OLYMPIC ace Mo Farah has had his legs insured for a staggering £7million – over fears he could pick up a horror tackle during Soccer Aid for Unicef match. The British runner, who is aiming to…

Open link

Well here you go, Mo Farah had his legs insured before a charity soccer game as well. Wayde's handlers no doubt made sure he was taken care of

Correct, and I'm sure not a day goes by that he doesn't regret his decision to play in that (touch) rugby match; he was on a trajectory to be one of the all-time greats, and would probably have been the first man under the 43-second barrier.

On a related note, my high school coach forbade his charges from playing touch football, not so much for fear of catastrophic injury, but due to what happens when athletes who train daily for a straight-line repetitive motion sport suddenly start cutting, jumping, quickly stopping and starting, etc. He told us our muscles just weren't used to that, and a game of touch football would leave us so sore it would compromise our training for the next few days. And he was right, as those of us who disobeyed his edict found out. (This included an annual "Turkey Bowl" game between alumni and current athletes on Thanksgiving morning.) I'd be limping around like a cripple for 2 or 3 days after a touch football game.

I am not going to call WvN dumb. There have been a long list of sub-10.10 100m men who played American football with no serious leg injuries. Injuries can happen many different ways.

WvN was 24, 2016 Olympics, correct? More than a few posters on here have stated he likely would have broken 43 seconds if not for the injury. There is no evidence to support that opinion.

2016 Olympics 400m final, likely would have been his peak success. Has anyone else sprinted sub-43.05 400m at age 24 and sprinted 400m faster age 25 or older? No.

Poor guy, gotta feel for him, took him a long time to get back to being competitive. Still think he can get back to where he was, a 42.9x would be insane

Probably the cover story for a suspension. 100% this guy was a doper.

That last paragraph is an awful fallacy. No one else has sprinted sub 43.05 EVER so there is literally no evidence to refute or support your claim.