Alicia Sacramone and Alexandra Raisman Injured Before Worlds Championship
Multiple reports are confirming that both Alicia Sacramone and Alexandra Raisman were injured training for Worlds. This has the potential to be a big problem for the US Team if they are down a team member.
Multiple sites are reporting that both Alicia Sacramone and Alexandra Raisman were injured in training this morning. Both appear to have ankle problems -- Sacramone landed badly on an Arabian double front during a full floor routine, while Raisman crunched her ankles on a balance beam dismount (double tuck).SourceSacramone's injury is currently being evaluated, according to USA Gymanstics and the AP. But Raisman did return to training, according to The Couch Gymnast, who is watching at Yoyogi Hall, and did bars without doing any dismounts. The U.S. training session finished at 1 p.m.
It appears that Raisman's injury is not serious. USA Gymnastics on Twitter:
"Alicia Sacramone was injured today at practice and is being evaluated. Aly Raisman took a short dismount off beam but is fine."
Without Sacramone, the U.S. has a few options. Her loss is most keenly felt on vault, where she is the only other gymnast besides Jordyn Wieber and McKayla Maroney to have a start score of less than 6.0. In team finals, the U.S. could likely put Gabrielle Douglas, who has a killer DTY, in her place.
She's even harder to replace on beam, but the likeliest thing the U.S. would do is to put Wieber, Raisman and Sabrina Vega up there in team finals. Beam is Vega's best and favorite event, and she has looked very good on it throughout the training. There's also the question of non-traveling alternate Shawn Johnson, who is training for the Pan American Games at home in Iowa. Flying Johnson to Tokyo would take close to 16 hours, however. The U.S. competes in women's preliminaries Saturday beginning at 1:15 p.m., which would give Johnson less than a day to get acclimated. Nor would she have time to use any of the equipment. However, beam is Johnson's best event.