"Sometimes this sport will just break your heart over and over again"-Olympic medalist Courtney Frerichs to miss Paris Olympics after knee surgery

The United States steeplechase athlete Courtney Frerichs will miss the 2024 Paris Olympics, scheduled from July 26 to August 11, after undergoing a right knee surgery on May 15, Wednesday. While practicing water jumps two days before her first race of the 2024 outdoor season, she suffered a complete ACL tear and tears in both the medial and lateral menisci.

During the 2023 season, Frerichs ran the 3000m steeplechase once at the 2023 U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships where she clocked a time of 9:47.36 in the heat to qualify for the finals. However, she didn’t stand in the finals after sustaining an ankle injury from a fall during the heats.

Frerichs took to her Instagram to share the news of her undergoing a season-ending knee surgery which officially rules her out from competing at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials and eventually the Paris Olympics. She captioned it:

“Sometimes this sport will just break your heart over and over again 💔 Wednesday I had surgery to reconstruct my ACL and repair a torn meniscus in my right knee."

Courtney Frerichs also stated:

"Last month, two days before what was supposed to be my first race of the outdoor season, we were practicing water jumps when my knee hyperextended in the water pit resulting in a complete tear of my ACL and tears in both my medial and lateral menisci.”

She added:

“There have been many tears and my brain has tried to make sense of all this and what went wrong. As runners we tend to view things systematically, but truth is this was a freak accident that comes with the inherent risk of being a steeplechaser combined with my hyper-mobile body.”

The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist expressed her heartbreak after missing out on the season, adding:

“I am absolutely heartbroken to be missing this season- especially it being an Olympic year, but I keep reminding myself that a single season doesn’t define me or my running career.”

Courtney Frerichs’ silver-medal performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Courtney Frerichs of Team United States poses with the silver medal for the Women's 3000m Steeplechase Final on day twelve of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 04, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Courtney Frerichs bagged the silver medal in the women’s 3000m steeplechase at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021 with an impressive season-best performance of 9:04.79s. She only finished second to Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai who clocked a National record time of 9:01.45.

Besides her Olympic silver medal win, she also won the World Championships silver in the 3000m steeplechase in the 2017 edition with a time of 9:03.77. In addition, she won the silver in the 2018 IAAF Continental Cup in the distance.