Yang Hak-seon who had won the gold medal at the London Olympics has put an end to his chances of making the cut into South Korea’s Olympic contingent for Rio after being unable to recover from a torn Achilles, as reported by the Yonhap news agency on Friday.
The athlete who was the world champion in 2011 and 2013 and has been given the title of ‘God of Vault’ in Korea, underwent a surgery towards the end of March post suffering an injury while training. Despite undergoing intensive rehab in order to be fit in time for the Olympics and earn a place of Korea’s five man team, he was unable to recover 100%.
He received complete support from the Korean Gymnastic Association as they gave him extra shots at making the cut by scheduling three additional trials in this month, but they made an announcement on Friday saying the Games were too soon and that Yang required more time to get back to full health.
“Yang’s current condition is not good enough to perform professional techniques. He is recovering but for him to come back to his normal condition some more period of treatment is needed,” Yonhap quoted the KGA as saying.
“We have been notified that from a long-term perspective Yang has decided not to participate in the upcoming trials.”
