Heading into an Olympic year, the last thing any professional athlete wants is a broken bone, let alone two of them. Unfortunately, this has been the reality American short course star Summer Rappaport has been faced with over the past few months, after an injury hit end to the season.

Rappaport, who broke her jaw in a bike crash at the Super League Triathlon Championship Series event in Malibu, also suffered a broken elbow from the accident before being diagnosed with a sacral stress reaction, which came after suffering what was though to be SI joint pain in the summer.

However, having still finished the season as World Triathlon #10 and Olympic Ranking #13, Rappaport is the third ranked American and will hope for a speedy recovery over the winter months if she is to qualify for a second consecutive Olympic team next season.

“It was a little bit of a relief”

Sharing the story of how her stress reaction diagnosis came about, Rappaport said that originally the scans on her back in August and elbow in September missed a lot, meaning she spent a considerable amount of type in limbo unable to identify the cause of her pain.

“It turns out my initial scans, both for my back injury that started in August and of my elbow in the ER in Malibu missed a lot, which meant a period post crash of trying to figure out the pain I was feeling.”

Having been a DNF at the WTCS Finals in Pontevedra towards the end of September, the diagnosis of a stress reaction in her back that had been troubling her for some time was some consolation to Rappaport, despite originally being a source of frustration.

“As frustrated as I was to learn that the back injury that I was originally told I couldn’t make worse by racing was actually a bone injury, it was a little bit of a relief to understand that there was a reason I was in so much pain that I couldn’t figure out how to push through.”

Ground Zero

Looking to build back into training now ahead of the season opener at WTCS Abu Dhabi in March, Rappaport underlined the challenge of dealing with so many injuries, saying she had never been unable to do all three sports before.

“I’m finally back to doing something resembling triathlon training, […], I’ve never been in a position where I was so injured that I couldn’t do any of the three sports of my sport and it has definitely been a bit daunting to think of build in front of me in all three sports.”

After a season that despite its low points included a podium at WTCS Montreal, Rappaport will be one of the main athletes in contention to take the two spots available on Team USA at the Olympics along with Taylor Knibb, who qualified in August at the Paris Test Event.