Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images
U.S. women’s hockey star Brianna Decker is out of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The star forward and assistant captain suffered a serious leg injury during the match against Finland Thursday.
Decker briefly attempts to get up as she drags her body forward before lying back down. Doctors arrive on the ice and carry out Decker, who was sitting up and conscious, in a stretcher.
“It was sickening,” teammate Amanda Kessel told NBC after the game,The Guardianreports. “She is one of the toughest players I have ever played with. She is not staying down on the ice and not crying if it was not bad.”
“We want to win for her,” she shared.
American captain Kendall Coyne Schofield described the moment as “awful,” according toThe New York Times.“There’s no other way to put it. It was really tough to see. She’s one of the toughest, strongest players in the world, and so when you hear her react like that, obviously, it was devastating and nerve-racking for us.”
The game continued and the U.S. upset Finland 5-2.
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, beginning Feb 3, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
“You saw that our line shifted when Brianna went down, and everyone did an amazing job stepping up,” Coyne Schofield added. “There’s no replacing Brianna Decker in that situation, but everyone stepped up to the plate in the way they were asked to.”
Coach Joel Johnson added, according to the outlet, “It wasn’t because of the injury that we played better, but I think there was some extra emotion that took place inside of everybody.”
This year marked Decker’s third Olympic appearance after competing in 2018 and 2014, winning gold and silver respectively.
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“She is in really good spirits,” her mother Marilyn Decker toldTMJ4 News. “Thank God it’s not her knee, and it’s not her head. She’s talking and she’s breathing and she’s doing pretty good.”
She continued, “Immediately they did a CT scan and an MRI and they didn’t give me the results on all of that yet - but it’s something with the lower leg. The Olympic doctors are incredible so she’s in really good hands.”
Her brother echoed similar sentiments and said, “I believe she’ll be back.”
source: people.com
