Milad Karimi suffered a horrific arm injury last year at the Melbourne World Cup but managed to come back in just a few months. This year, he made finals on high bar and vault at the 2019 Melbourne World Cup and stopped short of making the final on parallel bars, the event on which he got injured a year ago.
Karimi talked to TengriMix about coming back after the injury and competing for Kazakhstan. Karimi’s been very vocal in the past about subpar training conditions in his country and even considered switching to Qatar while still a junior but things are slowly improving and Karimi is glad he stayed. Kazakhstan managed to place 16th at the last year’s World Championships and with gymnasts like Kurbanov and Mussayev capable of big scores on some events and Karimi back to doing all-around, the team is certainly capable of placing higher.
Karimi did not expect to fall on parallel bars as this was always one of his strongest events:
“Nothing foreshadowed trouble. It was my favorite event which was always easy for me to do. But not this time. I saw how the other guys did and thought I could do better. I don’t know what happened, I wanted to grab the bar but missed it. My hand twisted and I hit my neck on the bar. When I fell, my arm was under me. I looked at the stands, saw how the fans looked at me in fear. My coach ran up to me, the doctor was behind him. They put me onto a stretcher and took me to the warmup hall. The painkiller pill was’t working. I was suffering for over an hour, the ambulance was taking a very long time to arrive. I was taken to a hospital. The surgery cost $15,000, thankfully, it was covered by insurance.”
“I stayed with an Uzbek coach for almost a week. When I think back to my condition, it’s scary: I left a liter of blood after the fall, my arm was swollen, I couldn’t eat, sleep or move. I was afraid that the stitches would come apart. I couldn’t really talk to my family on the phone, my speech was almost gone, it was like the neck paralyzed the tongue. I was missing home, I tried to calm my loved ones down, told them I was fine, but I was actually afraid. Despite the hosts being nothing but welcoming, I knew that I caused discomfort to them. I realized that I needed to stay there to get stronger. And the Australian medicine is very developed, they really helped me.”
Karimi was told that he had to skip a year of training to heal completely but he had other plans:
“I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was three years old. It’s my life. I’ve invested a lot of effort in order to compete at such big competitions. You can’t avoid injuries in this sport. The first thing I learned was how to fall. So, I’m used to it. I even started video recording my falls in order to see where my mistakes were. I set a goal for myself: to recover and come back to the World Cup, make the final and show that I’m stronger. I couldn’t wait a whole year, I would have gotten out of shape and missed important competitions. So, I started training right away. My arm wouldn’t let me work, I had to have another surgery to take out the plate that was supporting the joints. You could say that I was in the lineup with the beginners and working on my arm. I did everything to recover, listened to all the advice from the doctor and the coach: massage, physical therapy, special exercises, swimming. I saw that all that benefitted me. In addition, I noticed how my team was improving, so I had a lot to catch up with. I was hurt and upset. My desire and the fact that I kept working without pitying myself helped me to overcome everything. The most important thing was to overcome my fear.”
“Of course, it was risky to compete at the national championships with injured arm but this was my main ticket to big competitions and it became a good incentive to work on my recovery. I was able to do it. It was scary to go back on the event that sent me to the hospital. But my anxiety went away during the competition, I even felt pleased that I did everything I planned to. [At the last Melbourne Cup], I made two finals: on high bar and vault. I managed to improve my performance. If I gave up and decided that I needed more time to recover, I would’ve missed the most interesting stuff. But I managed to get back in shape in a year and, perhaps, became even stronger in some aspects.”
Karimi once again talked about having to train abroad a lot because the local gyms lack proper conditions:
“Kazakhstan doesn’t have the conditions. We have a strong team and good coaches but the gym at Academy of Sports and Tourism where we train lacks proper lighting and is too cold. In the winter, not only we catch colds, it becomes impossible to train there. In below-freezing temperatures, the risk of injuries grows. If the joints are cold, you can get injured at any moment, especially with our training load. Yes, the equipment is old but it’s not completely worn out, it could serve several more generations of young gymnasts. But it’s the worst option for elite athletes. And the trampoline and the tumbling track need to be replaced. There is different equipment around the world. When we go to competitions, they usually have German equipment but we’re training on old French equipment. The floor is very hard, while the competition floors are softer, with more push. The coaches organize camps in gyms that have such equipment so that we could prepare for international competitions.”
“I’m proud to compete for my country and I don’t want to be on any other national team. If you win medals, you can earn decent money here. We feel the support of the athletes, the conditions are getting better with each year. Of course, there are still problems but it’s not a reason to run to another place.”
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