Injury puts Olympic champ on ice

TORONTO • A frightening spinal injury forced Derek Drouin to shelve his track and field season.

The reigning Olympic high jump champion has a bulging disc in his neck, which kept him out of the Commonwealth Games in April. The Canadian announced earlier this week he was shutting it down for the season to avoid the risk of serious injury.

“We’ve decided that it was in my best interest to get this completely figured out before we go back to a sport where it’s my job to land on my neck,” Drouin said.

The 28-year-old from Corunna, Ont., has been “having confusing nerve issues,” including a loss of sensation.

“It’s the kind of thing you don’t want to mess with, given that it’s obviously derived from the spine.”

The 2015 world champion is hoping to avoid surgery and said the good news is MRIs have shown marked improvement just from doing some specific exercises.

He’s also been able to keep up his daily training schedule in Toronto. The only limitation is landing on his neck in the pit.

“I’ve been really lucky that it’s not a typical injury that has kept me completely out. I’m still going to practice every day, doing all the stuff I normally would,” he said.

Drouin’s injury history reads like a medical textbook. He captured bronze at the 2012 London Olympics a year after rupturing two ligaments in his foot that required surgery to implant two metal screws. Shortly after winning gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, he revealed he’d competed with stress fractures in his lower back.

Last season, a nagging Achilles tendon injury forced him out of the world championships in London.

“The body of a high jumper,” Drouin said. “They seem to just be piling up ... when it rains, it pours. I’m hoping there will be a ray of light at theendofthis.”

He said the aim is to avoid surgery, but it “may very well be the final straw,” particularly if the injury threatens his future well-being.

“I’ve got hopefully a long life after sports, so we’re definitely playing it safe,” he said. “At this point, we’re hoping that things are moving along quite well on their own. I’m basically doing everything I can to avoid that (surgical) route, but you never know.”