Why are announcers talking about a hematoma for Gus Kenworthy?

United States skier Gus Kenworthy is competing in the Olympic Games with a broken thumb and a hematoma, but many don’t know what that means.

Many athletes have a very fleeting chance at capturing Olympic glory and will try to perform through any injury that may come up during the Games. American skier Gus Kenworthy is no exception, as he is skiing with both a broken thumb and a hematoma in his hip. Since the average Olympic viewer doesn’t have a medical degree, they may not fully understand what it means to have a hematoma.

The strict definition comes from www.medicinenet.com:

"A hematoma is an abnormal collection of blood outside of a blood vessel. It occurs because the wall of a blood vessel wall, artery, vein, or capillary, has been damaged and blood has leaked into tissues where it does not belong. The hematoma may be tiny, with just a dot of blood, or it can be large and cause significant swelling."

This basically means that Kenworthy had blood pooling in his hip and had to fight through some pretty major pain and swelling to compete. With how important his legs are to skiing and jumping, it’s a major feat that he is able to keep going at all. Think of just performing routine tasks like cooking a meal or walking a flight of stairs with a badly swollen hip. It wouldn’t be easy and Kenworthy had to try his best in an Olympic sport. Not only did Kenworthy show up, he nabbed a spot in the slopestyle finals. 

Kenworthy suffered a more significant injury as he had to have six vials of blood drained from his hip. The injury happened during a fall on a practice run during the Games and he actually chronicled the story on his Instagram page, though it’s not recommended for the faint of heart. There’s never a good time for an injury, but this might rank up there as one of the worst.

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Stories like this embody the spirit of the Olympics perfectly. It’s all about athletes giving their all for their country and overcoming incredible odds to even get there. No matter the obstacle, Kenworthy has done the USA proud in the 2018 Games.