Marcela Torres comforts Jonna Adlerteg following Adlerteg’s injury on bars at Doha

Another day, another injury.

Jonna Adlerteg, the 20-year-old from Sweden who fought hard over the past year to come back from a knee injury sustained on floor in the all-around final at the 2015 European Championships, re-injured her knee while competing at the FIG World Challenge Cup in Doha, Qatar on Friday.

Adlerteg qualified into the bars final at Doha with a score of 15.0 and won the title a day later with a 14.925, seven tenths higher than the silver medalist. But when she dismounted with her double layout, her face contorted in pain on the landing, and she later missed the medal ceremony so she could be checked by a doctor. Her coach accepted the gold medal for her.

“Happy with my first place yesterday. Got some pain in my knee from the dismount though,” Adlerteg wrote to her fans on Instagram on Sunday as a caption to a photo featuring her gold medal. “I will get it checked when I come home and hopefully it’s nothing major.”

Unfortunately, tests in Sweden confirmed that she had ruptured her meniscus and would need surgery, which she’ll undergo next Monday. Adlerteg was one of the two gymnasts selected to represent Sweden at the Test Event in Rio de Janeiro next month, but her prognosis now means she will be unable to contend for a spot at the Olympic Games.

“I’m sorry to say that I won’t go to Rio this year,” Adlerteg wrote this morning. “Although I’m heartbroken and devastated, I’m happy that my ACL is still fine. Rio has been a goal of mine for many years and it’s gonna take time for me to let that dream go but I will be fine eventually. I’ve got so much more to give.”

Adlerteg represented Sweden at the Olympic Games in 2012. She finished 39th in all-around qualifications, narrowly missing the final, but with big improvements on her bars in the years following the 2012 Games, she had a big shot at making both the all-around and uneven bars finals in Rio this summer. Adlerteg’s silver medal on bars at the 2013 European Championships was Sweden’s first medal in gymnastics in over 50 years.

Following this summer’s Olympic Games, Adlerteg and her teammate Emma Larsson planned to move to Boston to continue to train with their personal coaches, who recently accepted positions at Brestyan’s. Adlerteg has trained as a guest at Brestyan’s in the past and hopes the opportunity will help her continue to improve in the future.

Larsson, 17, is still set to compete at the test event, though the Swedish federation has not yet confirmed who will take Adlerteg’s spot. Most likely, we can expect to see Marcela Torres, the 27-year-old Argentinian transplant and last year’s national all-around champion who excels on vault (she placed fifth on the event at Doha this weekend).

Adlerteg joins a growing list of gymnasts dealing with injury so far in this Olympic year. Her announcement comes only days after Roxana Popa of Spain suffered a similar injury that will take her out of Rio, and weeks after Mary-Anne Monckton of Australia tore her ACL after earning a spot on her country’s test event team. Monckton underwent surgery this week and plans to return in 2017.

We wish Adlerteg a speedy recovery, and hope to see her back in the sport in the coming quad.

Article by Lauren Hopkins