Just Six Months More

She looked at it and bit her lip. This was serious, it had gone past the point of helping her to get through the day. Svetlana was so dependent now that she could barely function without it, let alone perform. Yet she still had to perform; day after day, mile upon mile, second after split second. And without that liquid she was useless. No, worse than useless; she was normal – and she knew how normal people lived. She remembered that only too well.

She massaged the tissue below her knee, then looked back at the loaded syringe sitting ominously on the small metal tray.

‘Everything alright, Svetlana?’ It was Yvgeny, one of the senior sports scientists. His voice was as cold as the running track outside.

‘Sure,’ she said, her voice shaky. ‘Just a little zoned out today.’

‘Not sleeping efficiently?’

‘No, no,’ she lied. ‘I’m fine, just need to get the circulation going, be alright once I get warmed up.’

He seemed to buy it.

Nodding her reassurance, Svetlana closed the cubicle door then turned her attention back to the kneecap. Behind it sat an out of reach pain that was a constant, deep rooted ache. Stress fractures in her left tibia and metatarsals had been hard enough to recover from, but the recent diagnosis of extreme cartilage damage had pushed the agony to a whole other level.

In normal circumstances she would’ve been allowed to stop training, to rest and let the tissue heal, maybe even operate, but these were not normal circumstances. Time was against her. Her age was against her. It was now or never. She needed to keep on training, to commit more, and push harder than ever before. But the pain-

There was a knock on the door. It opened a touch and then a woman’s plump faced appeared. It was Ulla, one of the ‘mentors’. Her one and only friend.

‘You ready, malyshka?’

Baby girl. Ulla always knew when to bring the honey. Svetlana swallowed, steeled herself, then nodded. Sensing her trepidation, Ulla silently pulled across a stool and sat down in front of her. She placed her hands over Svetlana’s in a reassuring gesture.

‘Why don’t you let me do that,’ Ulla said. Then, gently lifting Svetlana’s hands, she began to massage the knee more deeply. Svetlana winced.

‘It’s getting worse,’ she said.

Ulla said nothing, just continued to probe the tissue with her thin, muscular fingers.

‘I don’t think I can last much longer,’ Svetlana said through gritted teeth. ‘And it’s not the pain – I can tolerate that – it’s more. In the bones. When I run it feels like they’re going to break any minute.’

Ulla stopped massaging and placed her hands on either side of Svetlana’s leg.
‘Six months,’ she said. ‘You and I both know how bad this is, but you’ve just got to hold out six more months!’

Svetlana leaned forward and shook her head. A teardrop fell onto her thigh.

‘I can’t.’

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Ulla. ‘Look at me.’

Swetlana raised her glassy eyes. Ulla fixed her gaze.

‘I know your body better than you ever will, I should do, I’ve been looking after it for nearly twenty years! And since you first came into this academy, I’ve watched you become the best – the best in the whole wide world. Now you need to go out and prove to the rest of them that you are, prove it to them all.’

‘I can’t-’

‘Just six months,’ Ulla said. ‘After that you can retire, with a gold medal and all the honours that go with it. Imagine it! Imagine your life then, imagine how close you are! Do you think you can hold it together for just six months? For me? For your family?’

Svetlana sniffed and tilted back the tears. ‘Yes,’ she replied weakly.

‘Good!’ said Ulla, picking up the syringe. ‘Now let’s not have any more talk like that.’

As if to end the conversation, Ulla located the base of the kneecap then plunged the needle deep behind it. Svetlana gritted her teeth as she watched the small tube drain, then felt the pain in her leg dissolve. Ulla placed the empty syringe back on the metal tray.

‘That feel better?’ she asked. ‘Of course it does! Why, you’ll be flying around that track in Tokyo before you know it. Gold medal winner!’

Ulla lifted Svetlana to her feet and held her at arm’s length. ‘Nothing can stop you now.’

Then she pulled the young athlete close and whispered in her ear.

‘2020 will be a glorious year!’

Editorial

Just so that you know, not all of these stories are going to be COVID related, it’s just that the pandemic has created so many unique scenarios that have tweaked my imagination – like the delayed Olympics.

When you consider what even the least successful athletes have to sacrifice in order to qualify for international games; their youth, maybe a career, even their personalities, and all so that they can peak physically and mentally on one fateful summers day. For them to have and all that work and sacrifice torn apart by a virus, well, there must be heartbreak and drama in there somewhere.

Sure there will be many athletes who will be able to defer a year, but I like the idea of one that had a finite amount of juice left in the tank, whose body was just holding on for a day that gets snatched away and that will now be forever out of reach. Like the virgin mayfly that sees the sunset and realises it’s one day in the sun is coming to an end.

Or like most Saturday nights when I was a teenager!