Cyrus Crawford

ATHLETIC COMEBACK

According to Olympics.com, on February 6th 2026, the Winter Olympics started which hosted the sports of Skiing, Ice Hockey, Curling, Biathlon, Luge, Bobsleigh and a new addition to the competition; Ski Mountaineering. 2,900 athletes from over 90 countries are participating in these events, with 232 of which being from the United States. One of the U.S competitors was Lindsey Vonn– who on February 8th, 2026 was practicing her alpine skiing, in which she crashed and suffered a “complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will take multiple surgeries to fix properly.” Despite the injury, Lindsey claimed she had “No regrets.” on her Instagram. She also wished that young athletes should continue to play after facing drawbacks such as injuries. Student athletes at IRHS usually get injured playing the sport they enjoy, whether it be a serious or minor one, but the common result of those injuries are to come back wanting more.

 

Like Lindsey, students may continue to perform throughout the injuries that they experienced. A student here at IRHS by the name of Nestor Rodriguez expressed how he suffered through an injury but regardless of the severity he came back after recovering and played even better than before. According to another student here who wishes to be anonymous and participated in Football, underwent a multitude of injuries including tearing an ACL and dislocating their knee but despite those injuries recovered and kept playing afterwards.

Student athletes struggle with injuries just as professional athletes do, coming back and playing for the sport again is also a struggle in and of itself. This is an issue that both the competitive and highschool level sports can relate to.

 

Professional athletes such as Lindsey Vonn and student athletes such as ours at IRHS have one thing in common and it’s the determination to keep going. Obstacles, for instance, injuries that hinder performance or take athletes out of the game entirely are common between both worlds sports. Student athletes and professional athletes both consistently recover and play the game again. No matter the difference between skill level, fame, or the type of sport individual athletes may play, issues are universal and because of this, maybe both worlds aren’t as far as they may seem.