julissa gomez was a former karolyi protege. she was selected to compete at the world sports fair in tokyo in 1988, just a few months before the olympics. strong on bars and beam, julissa was a shoo-in for a spot on the olympic team and she figured the fair would be a good opportunity to warm up in front of a crowd of that size. however, throughout the competition it was noticed by many that she was struggling with her vault. desperate to land the extremely difficult yurchenko (shaky at best, she landed NONE of the vaults cleanly during practice), she trained it over and over, to increasingly futile results. to make things even more eerie, she started talking a lot about soviet gymnast elena mukhina, who had broken her neck and became paraplegic just before the 1980 olympics. in an incredibly tragic turn of events, julissa bungled her yurchenko during qualifying and hit her head on the vault at high speed instantly rendering her paralyzed from the neck down. added insult to an already screwed up situation, negligence on the part of a tokyo hospital caused her to be disconnected from her ventilator, causing severe brain damage, basically turning the elite gymnast into a vegetable. despite her family caring for her tirelessly, julissa gomez died from an infection in 1991, aged 18.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:22:29 +0000
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