French gymnast Samir Ait Said ended yet another Olympic dream, this time in Rio de Janeiro, after breaking his left leg during a botched vault jump Saturday.
To add insult to injury, medics dropped his stretcher as they loaded the injured athlete into an ambulance at the Brazilian arena.
It’s unclear if the drop added to the already-gruesome injury that mangled the 26-year-old Said’s leg during a rough vault landing, which snapped his tibia and fibula. The cracking bones were reportedly heard throughout the arena during the men’s qualifying event.
On television, a horrified commentator told viewers, “Please, everybody, turn away."
Said attempted two backflips off the vault, but video shows him landing on the padded mat with the brunt of his weight on his left knee.
The footage then shows Said silently rolling onto his back — covering his pained face — as his disjointed left leg dangled below the knee. During the ordeal, Said never cried or screamed.
Onlookers cheered and gave Said a standing ovation as medical personnel carried the injured gymnast out of the arena on a stretcher.
Video footage showed medics in red Rio Olympics jerseys placing Said into an ambulance when the stretcher appeared to crash to the ground before leaving for a nearby hospital, USA Today first reported.
“It is catastrophic,” Said’s teammate Cyril Tommasone said. “Our mental state is very bad but we each have a target and we have to carry on for ourselves.”
A nearly identical injury forced Said to call it quits before competing in the 2012 Olympics in London. Said landed awkwardly following another vault jump, fracturing his right tibia during the Men’s European Championships in Montpellier, France.
Despite Saturday’s injury, Said pledged to compete in the Olympics again.
“I will return to Tokyo to win the gold,” the French Gymnastics Federation tweeted on Said’s behalf.
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