by Amanda Turner
While most of her teammates and their coaches were taking a post-worlds breather, Russia's Maria Zasypkina was back in the gym at round Lake on Nov. 9, eager to improve for the 2002 season. Instead, she will likely be out of action for quite some time. While vaulting a simple roundoff half-on, handspring timer, something went awry. Zasypkina landed heavily on her head, and help was not on the way.
Team doctor Vyacheslav Borisov urgently phoned for help but was told by hospitals that Round Lake was not in their coverage area. Head coach Leonid Arkayev, absent from Round Lake that day, was immediately alerted by phone. With years of experience navigation through Russian bureaucracy, the great lion Arkayev roared. "The life of one of our team members is at stake!" he informed the hospital. "Come immediately!"
Within 20 minutes an ambulance was at Round Lake. By then it had already been an hour since the fall, and by the time Zasypkina reached the Moscow's Central Institure for Traumatology and Orthopedics she was in respiratory failure. Tests showed a fractured fourth cervical vertebra; surgery was performed to stabilize her spine.
Initially, doctors feared the worst. Her condition- full paralysis of the legs and limited movement of the hands- was identical to the state of 1978 world champian Yelena Mukhina following her 1980 accident. (Mukhina remains paralyzed today.) But almost immediately Zasypkina's fate revealed itself, veering from the tragic path of Mukhina. Following a second surgery, in which a metal rod was inserted into her back, feeling slowly returned to Zasypkina's frozen limbs. Within days she was able to move her legs; within weeks she was sitting up. A month later, she was on her feet.
The persistence that made Zasypkina a world-class gymnast revealed itself again in her convalescence. After her surgery on the day of her accident, she had asked her doctors if she could do gymnastics again. Within a few weeks they optimistically predicted a full recovery. Her coach of six years, Maria Tipkova (who was watching from 10 feet away when the accident occurred), said that through it all Zasypkina never cried.
Following the accident, Zasypkina's family rushed from their hometwon of Tula to stay by her side. Uninterested in the romance novels her older sister Anna brought to read her, Zasypkina asked her father, Yuri, for fairy tales. Her doctors have told the Russian press it's possible she can eventually return to gymnastics.
For Maria Zasypkina, whose simple vault nearly met with absolute tragedy, a return to the gym will be her own fairy tale ending.
-Amanda Turner
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