Youth Olympian Alegna Osorio dies after being struck by hammer during training

[Jilly_in_VA]

Youth Olympics hammer thrower Alegna Osorio has died from head injuries sustained in a training accident, the Cuban national sports institute said on Thursday.

The 19-year-old Osorio was struck by a hammer at a track and field stadium in Cuba in April.

“We share this unbearable pain with her family,” said Osvaldo Vento, the president of Cuba’s national sports institute.

Osorio placed fourth in the girls’ event at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics and took bronze at the Pan-American under-20 championships two years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/29/youth-olympian-alegna-osorio-dies-after-being-struck-by-hammer-during-training
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This is a sad and devastating but thankfully relatively rare event. However, as the grandmother of a young woman who, as her mom puts it, "throws shit" (discus and shot) I am aware of the dangers. Peace and light to Alegna's family.

[Skittles]

1. hammer thrower?

WTF

[Jilly_in_VA]

4. It doesn't say

how the accident happened, whether hers rebounded on her during an aborted throw (possible) or she was hit by someone else's errant throw (more likely). Whatever, it's tragic. I seem to remember that some other field athlete died some years back when hit by an errant hammer. Field events can be hella dangerous. That's why we are always after the granddaughter to use the eyes in the back of her head when she's out there.

[Skittles]

8. the "sprot" itself just sounds STUPID

[Ohio Joe]

2. RIP

[ProfessorGAC]

3. This Has Happened Before

There's a reason most states don't include hammer throw in high school track.
It's rare, but every incident results in significant injury. Or worse, as in this case.

[Goonch]

5. Alegna Osorio

[calimary]

6. Oh no!!!

MAN, that, and Simone Biles. You can literally die from your sport.

I don’t think many people appreciate the struggle and danger and threat of injury - and worse - that these athletes voluntarily accept in their quest for perfection.

I’m sure I don’t fully appreciate that, either. But I was never any good at sports, either. Can’t run, hit, jump, catch, or throw. Or anything else along those lines.

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. If you remember this happening

or saw this earlier today https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215675325 or remember Kerri Strug doing that vault with the ankle sprain (that one pretty much ended her career, IIRC) then you will know what it's about.

I was a very good runner way back when. Very fast. I didn't have an outlet for it at all because at that time there were no interscholastic sports for girls in my high school and nothing in my city. There was no track in the intramural sports that were offered. Several other female friends and I were tucking up our skirts (we couldn't wear pants to school then either) and running on the track at lunch hour and we got hauled into the principal's office and yelled at for being "unladylike". Never mind that we showed less leg than we did in our gym shorts. I trashed my ankle the summer I was 17 and the old family doc didn't tend to it properly so I never could run right after that...but oh, how I idolized Wilma Rudolph and those Tennessee Tigerbelles! I was so jealous of them....

[calimary]

9. Oh gosh I do remember that.

Career-ending, and so young!!!

You have only one body to get you through life.