Hampered by an ankle injury in Beijing, Brandon O'Neill of Canada is looking ahead.
Everywhere you looked, inspiration. Everywhere you looked, a wreck. For Canada’s men’s gymnastics program — and particularly for its crown jewel, Kyle Shewfelt — the first day of competition of the 2008 Olympic Games was both a great achievement and a mess of defeat. Judging, injuries, it all crashed down.
As a team, they were eliminated. As individuals, they almost all fell short. For most, four years or more of work erased one day into the Beijing Games. So many of the six small men had overcome something to be here: Brandon O’Neill of Edmonton was trying to defy physics and biology on a badly sprained left ankle; Adam Wong of Calgary was a year removed from a torn Achilles tendon; Nathan Gafuik, also of Calgary, was competing despite Addison’s disease, which means his body does not produce adrenaline.
And then there was Shewfelt, the most inspiring wreck of all….
Update: O’Neill, 24, who won a silver on floor at the 2005 World Championship, tells International Gymnast that he plans to keep competing.
