When you’re pushing your body to the extreme limits there’s always a chance it can buckle.
The Olympics is the pinnacle of sport and when athletes are performing at such a high level and striving for greatness it can sometimes end in injury.
We’ve already seen the images of French Olympic gymnast Samir Ait Said’s horrific leg break and he was vaulting on the opening day of the Rio Games.
Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten was lucky to escape serious injury in a crash too when she tumbled over the handlebars and landed on her head, rendering her unconscious in the women’s road road.
But sadly for millions of people watching the events at home, yet another athlete has suffered a severe, Games-ending injury.
This time it came in the Olympic Weightlifting with Armenian lifter Andranik Karapetyan in the 77kg class.
The 20-year-old is current European champion and must have had high hopes of a medal.
But while performing a 195kg lift on the clean and jerk his arm just gave way and he appeared to fully dislocate his elbow trying to press the bar overhead to complete the rep.
We must warn you: it’s GRAPHIC CONTENT
Andranik karapetyan. Armanian #weightlifting favourite. Unfortunately injuring himself. #Olympics #Rio2016 #ouch pic.twitter.com/kUPjDlDiY3
— Mike Freeman (@freeman_scribes) August 10, 2016
He screamed in pain as he tried to ditch the 429lb bar with his forearm dislocated and medics an Olympic officials rushed onto the platform to help him.
It looked like he was a certainty for a medal before that lift, which would have been his country’s first of the Games.
But the sickening injury shattered his dreams of Olympic glory, as Kazakhstan’s Nijat Rahimov took gold, with China’s Lu Xiaojun and Mohamed Ihab Youssef of Egypt taking silver and bronze respectively.
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