French gymnast, 26 year old Samir Ait Said broke his leg and the sound of the leg snapping was audible from down on the floor to up in the rafters. The next sound was a collective gasp from the crowd, then a groan, then silence.
Said collapsed after he landed and broke his leg during a vault training on Saturday, his left tibia broke on impact and his leg twisted grotesquely away from his thigh. After he landed, he grabbed his leg and covered his face with his right hand while trainers surrounded him for several minutes. A wheelchair was rolled out to the side of the mat where he lay but he couldn't use any of those items, he was strapped to a stretcher and carried off as sympathetic fans cheered.
French coach Denis Charlieux said that Said had been taken to the hospital and that they were waiting for further information from doctors. He called the day “a nightmare.”
He said:
“It’s so hard to deal with something like that,” he said through a translator. “He would be in the final if it didn’t happen.”
Later in the evening, the official feed of the French gymnastics federation tweeted that Said had a double tibia fracture and wanted to return for 2020.
