'Unlucky' Ferrari Undergoes Surgery!

As Italian veteran Vanessa Ferrari prepared for surgery, her coach Enrico Casella told that Ferrari and he had faith she could have won a medal before a torn Achilles' tendon finished Ferrari's routine in the floor exercise final at the world championships in Montreal.

The Achilles repair was done by Dr. Guido Zattoni, who performed other surgeries during her career, including the double Achilles repair she had in September 2016, following the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The 2006 world champion appeared fully recovered in Montreal, where she competed balance beam and floor exercise. During beam qualification, she landed her ff, ff tucked full series and stuck her double pike dismount, but finished 25th because of missed connections and wobbles. She qualified seventh to the floor final, tumbling a tucked double-double; double layout; tucked full-in; and layout front full.

Ferrari, the final gymnast in floor exercise final, had planned a slightly harder routine in the final than she had performed in qualification, where she scored 13.600. After a clean opening pass in the final, she was injured on the takeoff of her second pass, which she changed from double layout to whip, full-in.

Casella said he and Ferrari had faith she could have won a medal in Montreal. (Japan's Mai Murakami won gold with 14.233 followed by American Jade Carey with 14.200, and Great Britain's Claudia Fragapane, who won bronze with 13.933.)

"She was really disappointed because she felt very good before her tendon broke," Casella said. "In the warm-up hall five minutes before, she made the whole routine and she felt very confident. She wanted to fight for a medal, and I believe she could have."

Casella likened the circumstances in Montreal to Ferrari's experience at the 2011 Worlds in Tokyo.

"Like in Tokyo when she had an injury 10 minutes before the floor final, she was unlucky," Casella said. "In both cases, she felt very good and had a serious opportunity for a medal."

Ferrari recovered from her injury in Tokyo and tied for third on floor exercise in the final of the 2012 Olympic Games, but was bumped down to fourth because of a tie-break. She tied for the gold medal on floor exercise at the 2014 Europeans and won silver on floor exercise at the 2013 World Championships. At last summer's Olympic Games in Rio, she again qualified third to the floor exercise final but finished fourth.

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