Australian Shayna Jack, who broke her hand on Wednesday when colliding when her hand became entangled in another swimmer’s suit in the training pool, her spokesperson told SwimSwam on Thursday, referring to the incident as a “freak accident.” Jack was forced to withdraw from the meet and will have to have surgery.
Jack was swimming into the wall in the warmup pool when the swimmer in front of her turned and pushed off. Jack’s finger was caught in the other swimmer’s suit, pulling her finger back.
The break has been described as a ‘clean break,’ meaning a more straightforward surgery and recovery.
Jack leaves the meet with a pair of medals, a gold in the women’s 400 free relay and a silver in the 400 mixed medley relay. Based on her early relay splits at the meet, she would have been a contender for more medals later in the meet, both in relays and in the individual 50 and 100 meter freestyles.
Jack posted photos of the injury on Instagram, including an X-ray of her fractured 4th metacarpal.
Jack says that she is still planning to be ready to race for Australia at the Commonwealth Games that begin at the end of July when Australia is expected to have a fuller squad than the one they brought to the World Championships.
A Brief History of Warmup Injuries
She’s not the first big-name swimmer to suffer a serious injury after a warmup pool collision in the last decade. Elizabeth Beisel fractured a finger in the warmup pool at the 2016 Olympic Trials. In 2018, an Alabama swimmer had to be flown to a hospital as the result of a warmup pool collision. A Virginia swimmer broke her hand in warmups in 2015 after setting the school record in the 100 fly.
One of SwimSwam’s most-liked Instagram posts of 2018 was a picture of an AppleWatch that was shattered via a practice collision.
Wow. I hope she recovers quickly.
#AthleteLivesMatter
Refreshing that Sun Yang wasn’t involved..
“another swimmer’s suit| ???? this is just too weird for words….
Talk about bad luck. She was having a great meet in her return to the big time.
makes me think of the various butterfly arm collisions that were had during circle swimming.
Hopefully she doesn’t run into any more Ligandrol along while she’s recovering.
Our favorite beer-bro weighs in!
Why is she any different from Sun Yang or Yulia Efimova, swimmers constantly ostracized around here? Did she not got busted for doping the same way same way they did? Was her excuse not just as flimsy as there’s (well nothing will ever beat the theatrics of Sun Yangs entourage destroying his blood sample but anyway)
While I agree that taking the low shoots at every opportunity is a bit lame, I find it a bit odd Shanya Jack has seemingly just been welcomed back by both the swimmers on deck and the broader community, especially among Australians.
And after all the noise made about taking a hard line stance against doping in the sport between the 2019 world’s… Read more »
I’m Australian and I 100% agree.
Shayna served her suspension and has returned. It is what it is.
But trying to turn her into the face of swimming in Australia and presenting it as this big come back story rubs me (and I assume the clean athletes) the wrong way.
If you are going to write facts, make sure they are facts. Yuliya Efimova never made any excuse. In fact, CAS applauded her for her honesty and was one of the factors CAS used when it reduced her ban, which allowed her to swim in the world championships. And when it comes to meldonium, WADA realized its error and its lack of due diligence about how long meldonium stays in a person’s system and had no choice but to do the right thing and allow Efimova to swim in the Rio Olympics. In both instances, Efimova never blamed anyone, never denied anything. Would be best to research before you respond. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not everyone is… Read more »
Like Yulia said it’s just like a traffic ticket. Pay the fine and move on
The reason for the different treatment begins with an ‘r’ and ends with an ‘m’
I thought it was common sense swimmers shouldn´t wear props (including watches, knecklaces, earrings and piercings, bracelets, etc.) at meet warm ups or even team practices. They could injure themselves, or worse, others.
Well, apparently it is not.
Lol knecklaces
😀
As far as I know, however, it’s still common practice to wear a suit, which was the culprit in this case.
I’m not 100% sure how someone’s hand becomes entangled in someone else’s suit (though I’m sure we’ve all been on the giving and receiving end of an unintentional backstroke pull grope, so maybe it’s something like that), but I think we all have had near misses or scary moments running headlong into someone or smacking hands over the lane lines (or the dreaded “oh crap where are the flags!!” moment in backstroke before you crash into the wall).
I’m not sure if they do this anymore, but I remember that Kenyon used to alternate the direction of circle swimming for each lane so that swimmers in adjacent lanes are next to each other swimming in the same direction, not… Read more »
I’ve done it! I was swimming backstroke and a woman was kicking on her side facing the opposite direction against the rope in the lane next to me. My left middle finger got hooked on the spaghetti strap of her suit and we both whacked into the lanerope pretty hard, since I was doing pace work.
I was doing reverse circles in the 1970’s
Do British/Aussie/kiwi/Japanese/etc. swimmers swim on the other side of the lane?
🙂
I remember reading about a college team, Northeastern maybe, that took a training trip to Ireland, and they circle swam clockwise because that’s how the locals did it.
A fun article from the old Swimmers Circle days:
https://staging.swimswam.com/tsc-mysteries-do-they-swim-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-in-england/
In England, they alternate lanes. In college, I did a two week program at Oxford and still had to train, so I would go swim and I swam the opposite direction every time just for the mental challenge and it was quite a challenge!
We still do it!