Injury puts Ottey out of action
published: Sunday | June 26, 2005

FILE
OTTEY

Anthony Foster, Freelance Writer

THE WORLD'S most durable athlete, Merlene Ottey, will miss the entire 2005 track and field season due to injury.

Ottey, a seven-time Olympian, was chasing a record eighth World Championships appearance.

The 45-year-old Ottey, Jamaica's most decorated athlete but now representing Slovenia, will undergo surgery within the next two weeks to repair a minor ligament tear in her upper left thigh, an injury sustained at last year's Olympics.

Daniel Zimmermann, a close friend of the athlete, yesterday confirmed to The Sunday Gleaner Ottey's status.

"It is true that she is going to have this surgery, but the date is not precisely determined as yet, but within the next two or three weeks for sure," Zimmermann said.

Ottey, the world 200m indoor record holder, sustained a similar injury after the 2000 Olympic Games, but on her right side.

forced to stop

At last year's Olympics, Ottey, Jamaica's 100m and 200m record holder, failed to finish in the women's 200m semi-final and Zimmermann said it was the same injury that forced her to stop.

"In the Olympics it got to the point it was too painful to run, but it's something she had before, but was just able to run with the pain," he said.

During the Olympic 200m semis, he said, "it became more serious ... where she had to stop."

It is an injury that goes as far back as 1998-99. "Over the last few week she has had this problems. It has gotten to the point where she said it's uncomfortable in her daily living so it's much better to do the surgery to remove that scar tissue," Zimmermann said.

problems sitting

Zimmermann, who is her former manager, said Ottey, winner of eight Olympic medals, is presently having problems sitting in cars and planes and walk around freely.

Despite these problems, Zimmermann could not say if Ottey, a two-time World Champion, is likely to call it a day.

"It's too early to speculate ... whenever you have surgery of any kind you don't normally know the outcome. And I know she is still very fit, she is training ever since October ... since the Olympics she started training normally and seriously.

"So I think it's far too early to speculate, people have speculated as far back as 1992 that her career is finished," said Zimmermann.

"I think it's just a matter of a few months to see how she recovers and how she is motivated or not motivated to continue to run."

Ottey was the first female Jamaican athlete to have win an Olympic medal and the first female in the English-speaking Caribbean to have win two Olympic medals.