WINTER X GAMES - INJURY FORCES EARLY RETIREMENT FOR ZOE

Jan 24, 2009

UPDATED:- Saturday 24th Jan 2009 7.15pm CET.

INJURY FORCES EARLY FINISH FOR ZOE AT THE X-GAMES (Zoe pictured at the X-games medical facility after her semi final heat)

Britains Zoe Gilling's was forced to retire early from the X-Games competition earlier today after a painful injury she recieved yesterday in qualifying.

Zoe qualified in an excellent 3rd place but on her second qualifying run sustained a painful compression injury to her right foot which put her participation in todays finals in severe doubt.

Despite suffering excrutiating pain, Zoe only decided to compete in the finals after completing one training run this morning.  In normal circumstances Zoe would complete 5 or 6 training runs on the course to ensure she had the best possible chance of winning and fully understanding the course.

Zoe tentatively went into the semi finals against a World Class field including the current World No 2 (Sandra Frei) and  last years World Cup Champion (Maelle Ricker) 

Zoe started the race with obvious signs of pain comming out of the gate in 5th place but surprisingly managed to fight herself into a qualifying 3rd position for a majority of the course.  Approaching the penultimate jump, Zoe was forced to slow her speed due to the athlete in front of her slowing herself, this caused Zoe to lose too much speed going into the jump where she then landed short of the landing area severely exagerating yesterdays compression injury.

This effectively ended Zoes X-Games competition as she was immediately taken to the medical centre for treatment.

Zoe is now expected to miss the next two competitions, hopefully being back to fitness for the next World Cup in Cypress, Canada on the 14th February. 

 

 

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ZOE'S FITNESS IN DOUBT AFTER PAINFUL INJURY IN QUALIFYING

Sat 24th Jan 08.56am CET

Yesterday saw the qualification round of the Winter X Games 13 held in Aspen, Colorado. The X Games is the American version of the Olympics and features invitation only world class athletes form around the globe.

This is now the third year running Zoe has recieved the prestigious invitation and showed exactly why she is one of the Worlds best snowboard athletes during qualifying yesterday.

Zoe equalled her best X Games qualifying time finishing in third place, she was 1.4 seconds behind the first position and World No 1 Lindsay Jacobellis and a massive 1.8 seconds in front of 4th place qualification, Mellie France (Switz).

The day didnt finish well though for Zoe, during the landing of one of the notoriously large jumps, Zoe suffered a painful compression injury on her right foot which has kept her off her feet since yesterday afternoon.  Its now 08.56am US time (3.56pm GMT) and Zoe is unsure of whether she will be able to compete today.

Zoe doesnt have a full time physiotheraspist.  The Britsh Olympic Association has helped Zoe out tremendously this season by providing her with addiitonal funding for a physiotherapist but unfortunately this doesnt cover the entire season. 

Zoe commented this morning, "Its really sore right now but I'm going to try and ride on it and see how it goes, I've been icing it every hour to try and reduce the swelling but its still extremely painful."

Headcam Footage from Zoe on course yesterday

 

WINTER X GAMES 13
The 13th annual winter action sports competition features athletes from across the globe competing for medals and prize money in the following sports: Skiing, Snowboard and Snowmobile. The event includes day and evening competitions and is free to the public.

ESPN and ABC will feature 15 hours of live high-definition programming Jan. 22 — Jan. 25. ESPN2 will present daily late-night highlight programs in HD from Jan. 22— Jan. 25, resulting in eight additional hours of original HD programming for Winter X Games 13. Additionally, the Winter X Games will also be televised on ESPN's International networks to 122 countries and territories in Latin America, the Pacific Rim, Middle East, Asia, Africa, Israel and Canada.