Sky Academy Sports Scholarships: Sam Oldham discusses what it takes to overcome a serious injury
Sunday 26 March 2017 14:14, UK
“One of the first things I said to my coach after I did it is that I was going to do that vault again, and he looked at me like I was an absolute lunatic,” recalled Sam Oldham when thinking back to the ankle ligament injury he sustained at the Commonwealth Games.
When the British gymnast describes exactly what happened, it is easy to understand his coach’s reaction, not to mention quite fortunate that the television cameras were unable to capture the fateful moment all that closely.
I’ll be nervous, there will be something in the back of my mind thinking ‘why am I doing this again?’
“I knew it was bad because I’ve had injuries in the past, so I know how bad things are, and it made an awfully strange sound,” Oldham told Sky Sports.
“In my periphery I saw my ankle facing me so I knew I’d done something. I’d dislocated it inwards and I went to put my foot back on the floor and it snapped back into place and as I stepped on it to put it on the floor it was almost like stepping on nothing.”
As you would expect after such a description, the injury was a serious one. The Sky Academy Sports Scholar was ruled out of action until Christmas, missing the October’s World Championships as a result.
However, with Oldham intent on returning to competition in time to represent Great Britain at the European Championships next April, the work to get him back to full fitness began just minutes after the injury occurred.
“Initially I was wheel-chaired off and taken into a back room where my doctor and physio came to assess the situation,” explained Oldham. “I got rushed straight off and had scans so that they could find out as quickly as possible what I’d done.
“Once they’d got the results they fed that back to me, told me the extent of the injury and then pretty quickly things started moving. They got in touch with the surgeon that day, the day I’d done it, let him know what had happened and tried to arrange a date for me to get the operation done.
“That ended up being two weeks afterwards because the surgeon wanted the swelling to go down. Even in that two weeks I had to do stuff on my ankle, really basic stuff, but it was just to keep it moving, keep the blood flow moving.”
Thanks to the help of a Game Ready machine that reduced the swelling, the surgery went ahead as planned and was a complete success. For Oldham though, that was just the beginning and after three or four days rest the process resumed.
“I went up to a centre where I met all the team who were going to look after me: physios, doctors, nutritionists, a strength and conditioning coach – there were about five or six people. I had a meeting with everyone, they got together an initial plan and I just started from there,” he said.
“I’m working in six-week blocks. So in the first block I had two weeks in my boot, no weight on my ankle, then it was two weeks partial weight – that basically means putting 50% of my body weight on it as I’m crutching along - then this week for two weeks I’m fully weight bearing without my crutches, that’s walking in my boot.
“We have a plan up to six weeks and then we start again with another six-week plan. I have a rough plan that is about three-and-a-half months long at the moment but we fill it in with details for the first six weeks, then the next six weeks and so on. (The rough plan) is briefly filled in so I know what’s coming.”
Being out injured is always said to be the most frustrating time for an athlete and given the tedious, but crucial exercises, Oldham must do to regain full flexibility in his ankle – moving it up and down millimetres at a time while hooked up to a Compex machine – it is hard not to agree.
The good news for the Olympic bronze medallist is that he is already able to do a lot of gymnastics work as well, albeit not to the same level of difficulty as he was in the run up to Glasgow, and the one apparatus he can do most on just happens to be the one he believes he has the most room for improvement – the rings.
“I can do loads and loads of stuff on rings. The majority of the stuff I’m doing gymnastics-wise is pure rings strength and conditioning and for me, that is a massive positive,” he added. “That is the area that if I have a weakness right now, that is it. It is something that I have to look at as a positive.
“I can do loads and spend the time that I wouldn’t have had the chance to if I was fit. Obviously I want to be fully fit but if I had been I probably wouldn’t have been able to spend such specific time at getting strong on the rings.”
It is a long road to recovery but Oldham is determined that should he make the GB team for the European Championships next year, he will not be there to simply make up the numbers. Indeed, the idea is not to stray too far from the path he had laid out prior to his injury setback.
“First and foremost it’s about making the team but I’m trying to stick to my plan as much as possible,” he said. “My floor and vault might not be where they would have been, or where I’d want them to be, but I don’t see any reason why I can’t stick to the same plan with the other four apparatus for the World Championships (in 2015) and Europeans.
I want to be fully fit but if I had been I probably wouldn’t have been able to spend such specific time at getting strong on the rings
“I’ll be pushing those four apparatus as much as possible and pushing my style values up. I obviously need to make the team and get back fit but I won’t be going to a major championships and not thinking about medals, I’ll be going there trying to win medals again.”
So with that in mind, will there be nerves when he next lines up on the runway to vault?
“Without a doubt,” he admitted. “There has to be after that. I’ve had injuries like this before and for me, in terms of the physical side of things it will be hard, running down that vault way and doing a big vault.
“Of course, I’ll be nervous, there will be something in the back of my mind thinking ‘why am I doing this again?’ But I’m sure once I’ve got past that it’ll just come back to me and I won’t even give it a second’s thought.”
As for attempting the vault that caused all of this, Oldham remains keen to conquer it but faces a whole new battle convincing his coach to let him, adding: "I’ve still got to warm him up to that idea.”
