Julia Marino ’s Olympic story: Achieving after injury

Julia Marino is always thinking about her story, and it would be hard not too, given how much of an adventure her life has been so far. “Being adopted out of Paraguay to have a normal life in America would’ve been enough of a story itself,” she says. “But I’ve had the chance to live a life beyond what anybody could even dream of.” As an Olympic skier, Julia has been competing at the top of her sport for almost a decade. In 2014, she reached the pinnacle of snow sports at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. But how she got there – and where she plans on going now – was heavily influenced by a devastating knee injury just a few years before the Olympics. An untimely injury At the age of 17, Julia was turning heads as a rising star in the slopestyle World Cup circuit. Slopestyle is a relatively new event in the Olympics, and involves skiers navigating a terrain park course while grinding rails and performing jaw-dropping tricks off of big-air jumps. Not surprisingly, injuries are common within the sport. In the first event of the 2009 season, Julia landed awkwardly after a jump and heard a pop in her left knee – followed by immense pain – signaling the tear of her ACL. An MRI at Boston Children’s Hospital confirmed the ACL tear, and Julia was scheduled to have surgery with Dr. Martha M. Murray, an orthopedic surgeon in Boston Children’s Sports Medicine Division. Given the high rates of re-injury for female athletes, particularly in sports like skiing, ...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Our Patients’ Stories ACL injury ACL injury prevention ACL reconstruction ACL tear Dr. Martha Murray Sports Medicine Division Source Type: news