Vanessa Ferrari recovering from ankle surgery, may miss Worlds

Ever since Vanessa Ferrari stunned the gymnastics community with victory at the 2006 World Championships, it’s been a tough road …

Most recently, Ferrari underwent a short surgery to repair damage to her ankle. According to the Italian Gymnastics Federation, everything went well (see press release here).

Since the Achilles was not involved, recovery should be fairly swift. She’ll be in a cast for 20 days and crutches for another 20 after that. Still, she may not be prepared for Worlds.

This comes after Ferrari won her fourth Italian championship in late May. (She would have had five in a row if she hadn’t been overtaken by Lia Parolari last year.)

I like Ferrari. I think she is a really solid gymnast, even if her path since 2006 has been a little rocky. She does by far my favorite beam mount (in its various iterations) among current international elite gymnasts. She earned a 16.000 (9.3 B/E-score) for this routine at the 2007 Europeans qualifications:

(International Gymnast has an article on this that basically parrots the press release … not unlike what I am doing!)