CNN
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In the run up to the Paris Olympics, athletes have been stepping up their preparations in order to maintain their edge over competitors.
But for Australia’s Matt Dawson, those preparations looked a little different this year, with the field hockey player opting to have part of his finger amputated in order to compete in the Games.
The 30-year-old Dawson injured the ring finger of his right hand after being struck by a hockey stick in a practice match just two weeks before he was due to represent the Kookaburras in Paris in what would be his third Olympic appearance.
The impact left the top of his finger almost entirely severed and had his Olympic dreams hanging in the balance.
“It was pretty significant the injury to the finger. When people around you – when they see it and don’t say anything – you obviously know, it’s pretty bad,” he explains to CNN Sport from Paris ahead of the Games kicking off.
“Things got moving pretty quickly. And all I remember someone saying was, ‘We need to see a plastic surgeon.’”
‘Lucky to still be hanging on’
The impact on his finger was so great that “the surgeon said it was very lucky still to be hanging on,” he adds.
The two-time Olympian was given two options: surgeons could attempt to reconstruct his finger by putting a wire in it, which meant four to six months of rest to fully recover and missing out on the Olympics – or they could remove the affected part of the finger.
Dawson, who was part of a silver medal-winning national team at Tokyo 2020, opted for the latter and amputated the affected part of his finger to ensure he could still get another shot at Olympic glory.
On July 27, he will join the Kookaburras as they face Argentina just nine days after he was injured.
“It has obviously given the best chance and best opportunity to play here. If I didn’t take this action, I wouldn’t be here,” Dawson says of his surgery, which he describes as having given him “the best outlook” for life.
“I’m very fortunate to still have as much finger as possible,” he adds.
“There was a rollercoaster of emotions in the last two weeks of not really knowing. Going into my third Olympic Games and then initially thinking that that was going to be taken away from me.
“But then it all came back pretty quickly. And now, I guess I’m in the best position to be here only 48 hours now out from our first game, which is really exciting.
“I’m just looking forward to the opportunity of, I think this group is building to something pretty special. We were pretty close in Tokyo. And I think there’s that burning desire and the drive within the group to continue to push ourselves and win that elusive title,” he adds.
