Kimberly Buys, Belgian swimmer and member of the Belgian Olympic Team, recently experienced a terrific accident.
She was riding her bike and was hit by a car; she said: “in that moment everything goes very fast and before you realize it you’re laying on the ground.”
The accident left her with a broken wrist. She was sent to a specialist and was told that surgery was needed in order for her to heal properly.
This happened roughly six weeks ago. For the first two and a half weeks it was impossible for her to swim; the week following the surgery she was in a lot of pain and did not exercise at all neither in the pool nor in the weight room. It was only the week after that she started getting back in shape while focusing on legs and cardio.
Two weeks ago, she got the green light from the doctor to get back in the pool. She is slowly building up everything while remaining careful for any sign that her body would give her. Her training took a drastic change, as she now has to swim with braces not only on her injured arm but also on the healthy one. She swims with braces on both arms so her shoulders and healthy arm do not take on too much pressure.
Buys swims in Antwerp (Belgium) under the supervision of coach Ronald Gaastra along with teammates Pieter Timmers, Glenn Surgeloose and Dieter Dekoninck, and is well known for her talent in butterfly and backstroke.
Indeed, she always shows up in international meetings like European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games. In the London Olympics she swam 58.79 in the 100m butterfly placing 19th falling short for to the semi-finals.
Her most recent performance was in Kazan (Russia) this summer at World Championships were she swam 58.36 in the 100m butterfly accessing the semi-finals. Buys confesses that following the surgery butterfly is still difficult, going fast is difficult, and she cannot make her turns properly in butterfly or for that matter dive in the pool. She admits of losing a lot of power in her upper body.
But she remains confident and jokes saying that she has time until Rio comes around. She will not be competing at the European Short Course Championships in December in Netanya (Israel) but she will be back on track for European Long Course from May 16th-22nd in London (U.K.).
I am sorry for Ms. Buys that this happened. No doubt difficult and challenging for an athlete. But I would suggest to the editor of swimming world that the magazine ought to reevaluate the headline of this story. Everyone involved including readers should be thankful that in reality no aspect of these events were tragic.