In the Red Rocks’ opening meet of 2014, Kassandra Lopez was warming up on floor when something went terribly wrong.
“On the take-off, I knew it happened,” Lopez said. “Even though it had never happened to me before, I knew.”
Lopez had torn her Achilles’ tendon.
Due to the nature of the sport, Achilles injuries are common in gymnastics. Gymnasts create such high levels of force during takeoffs, dismounts and landings that the stress from the repetitive jumping and landing can eventually lead to injury.
That’s what happened to Lopez, who admitted that her Achilles was sore a couple weeks leading up to the injury. When she actually tore it, though, there was no pain.
“It didn’t hurt at all, which was really weird,” Lopez said. “I don’t know if it was just the adrenaline or something, but I was just more upset that I knew that I was done for the season. I was just super upset about that.”
If there was someone who knew what Lopez was going through, it was her teammate, Corrie Lothrop (right).
Lothrop has torn both of her Achilles during her career and was returning to collegiate competition following her latest tear the night Lopez went down.
On Feb. 1, 2013, the day of the Utes’ meet against Arizona State, Lothrop felt some soreness in her left Achilles. Since she had previously torn her right Achilles and remembered the how sore it was before that happened, she didn’t think much of it.
“I don’t remember if it was sore that week, but it was sore that day, but I figured it wasn’t a big deal,” Lothrop said. “I was kind of comparing soreness and it wasn’t nearly as sore as the first one, so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’ ”
And then, all of the sudden, during her floor warm-up, it snapped.
“I knew exactly what it was,” Lothrop said. “I was more emotional about it because I knew what it meant and what I had in store for me for the next year.”
After surgery
Lopez had surgery two days after the tear, and then the challenge really began. For two months, Lopez couldn’t put any weight on her foot. This was followed by a couple months walking in a boot with a heel lift.
“Going from being fully able and really good at gymnastics to not being able to walk was so different,” Lopez said. “It made me really appreciative of what I can do.”
During those trying first months, Lopez received a gift from Lothrop — a necklace that bore the word “strength.” Lothrop knew Lopez would need it.
Nearly two years removed from her latest Achilles tear, Lothrop remembers the hardships that went into the early recovery stages. The winter season didn’t help matters.
“There was snow on the ground, so I just had fear of slipping,” Lothrop said.
Those fears weren’t unwarranted as just two weeks after her surgery, Lothrop slipped in her dormitory and split open the surgical incision.
“It was just thing after thing that just kept going wrong, so it was a little hard,” she said.
Regaining strength
Finally in late May, after months of inactivity, Lopez was able to go to the Utah football facility and start running on the underwater treadmill.
“That was really fun for me,” Lopez said. “It was really nice, to be able to move my body again. I was running, so I was like sweating and that was nice to do that.”
That was just the start of regaining the necessary strength needed to perform gymnastics.
Lothrop said the main thing before returning to the gym is strengthening the calf. She said that once she was able to put weight on her foot, she was told by doctors to try and do calf raises.
Lothrop had a little extra motivation in the form of Utah football player Marc Pouvave.
In the summer of 2012 during a practice, Pouvave tore his Achilles, which sidelined him for the year. Lothrop and Pouvave shared a class that fall semester and Lothrop remembers wishing Pouvave luck with his recovery, having done it once herself. A few months later, the two were recovering from the same injury.
Both Pouvave and Lothrop shared the same doctor and soon a competition was started to see who could raise their calf first.
So who won?
“I think I did. I’m not sure how it happened, but I was just progressing a little bit quicker,” Lothrop said, before adding that if you asked Pouvave, he would probably say he was the victor. “You would have to ask the doctor who really won.”
Back to the gym
In September, after months of healing and regaining strength, Lopez started doing gymnastic work again. She started with small drills for the beam and then worked her way up to doing a little bit on the floor.
“It kind of came pretty quickly for how slow the rest of the process was,” Lopez.
But there was still a process.
“With Achilles’ injuries you have to go really slow, you don’t rush into things,” Lopez said. “The process is, you do this first and then step your way up. So it wasn’t anything, like, scary, just I needed to be able to do it because it has to get stronger.”
That step-by-step process was seen last season when Lothrop only performed on bars and beam. Coming into the 2013 season, Lothrop was Utah’s most decorated gymnast, having earned five All-American awards, but even after returning to competition she couldn’t jump right back into performing in all of the events.
Lothrop said the biggest obstacle to overcome once back in the gym is trusting that your body is ready and can take hard landings.
“The bar landing was pretty hard, and the first few meets I landed with the sting mat,” Lothrop said. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel, or if I was going to be sore, and sore for a long time. But a lot of it was trusting that I was ready and I wouldn’t be doing the things that I was doing if our trainer didn’t think that I was ready.”
The process is finally complete for Lothrop, as she performed in the all-around competition against BYU last Friday.
Lopez also returned to competition against the Cougars for the first time since the tear, performing in the bars, but knows she isn’t quite fully back.
“Just getting back and getting comfortable again,” Lopez said of her goals this season. “Some skills I could do and some skills I couldn’t, it’s just kind of working to what you can do. I’m able to train beam, I’m not in the lineup right now, but I’m working hard and hopefully will get there.”
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