Olympic heptathlete comes back from an injury.

On August 8, 2008, Jessica Zelinka, twenty-six, will join her teammates and the world’s most talented athletes in the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, little more than a year after suffering a major injury in competition.

On the second day of the heptathlon at the 2007 Pan American Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Zelinka was in first place heading into the last event, the eight-hundred-metre race. She had been having trouble with a bruised right heel, especially in the long jump, which had forced her to withdraw from the Canadian Track and Field Championships one week earlier, and, according to Zelinka in the blog she maintains on the Web site of her sponsor, Aird and Berlis LLP, she was relieved to have performed well in the long jump and the javelin events earlier that day. Ahead in points, Zelinka merely had to finish the final race with a decent time to take the gold medal.

Jessica Zelinka at Ease.

The first half of the race went well, but 350 metres into the event, Zelinka felt something alarming in her sore heel that made her wonder whether someone had accidentally kicked her. It was a popping sensation, followed immediately by extreme pain. She stumbled, losing her gait, and then recovered, and forced herself to continue to run the last 450 metres “one step at a time,” picking it up near the end.

She finished the race, coming in third, still within enough time to win the gold medal for heptathlon, with a point total of 6,136. It was only after she visited the team doctor following the event that she learned that that popping sensation was a plantar tendon tearing away from a bone in her foot. Had she known it during the race, she may not have been able to continue.

The injury derailed her plans to compete in the World Championships in August of 2007 in Japan and pushed her Olympic goals only slightly to the background as she concentrated on recovering.

“She is not going to Osaka for the world championships,” her coach, Les Gramantik, was reported to have said. “Unfortunately, it’s killed her whole season."

The injury forced Zelinka to rest for three months, which she would not have done otherwise—a blessing in disguise, perhaps. Following a period of time on crutches and then an air cast, Zelinka, who lives and trains in Calgary, returned to general strength training in October 2007 and passed her initial qualification for the Canadian Olympic team. The transition from full rest to competitive performance was easier than Zelinka had anticipated. Her training last fall followed a gradual program of running, adding extra elements over the course of many weeks, including take-off drills and other specific physical training for her foot.

“My foot got a lot stronger through those little shifts and got bigger with those motions again, so it ended up being a pretty smooth transition,” said Zelinka.

Still, Zelinka pulled out of the Knights of Columbus Indoor Invitational Pentathlon, held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in February 2008, because she felt pain in her right foot on the long jump.

Later that month, Zelinka attended a training camp in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a coach suggested that she try to change to her left foot for the take-off on the long jump. An audacious suggestion, perhaps, but the plan seemed to work.

“It’s going well,” said Zelinka in May, shortly before leaving for Gotzis, Austria, for the first competition in which she would have the opportunity to try out her new technique. “We really just wanted to solidify the take-off in the pickup mechanics, and so I haven’t done a lot on the air mechanics and the landing—well, that kind of comes. So basically it’s good for Europe.”

Zelinka felt she had an advantage in relearning how to take off on her left foot in that she was able to leave behind all of the bad habits she had acquired over the years taking off on the right.

“Obviously, this is a process. It’ll be fine-tuned for the Games,” said Zelinka. “That’s my main focus. It is going well, but there’s still a lot to work on. But I would say that my take-off is better than my regular take-off right now.”

Zelinka returned to Europe in June 2008, where she competed at the Hypo Meeting in Gotzis, Austria, and the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge in Arles, France.

“It’s very interesting,” she said prior to her departure. “I’m excited. I think my competitors will be a little shocked,” said Zelinka, referring to her new technique of taking off on her left foot on the long jump. “Like ‘what is she doing?’—but it’ll be good. I feel I have the opportunity to race as well as I have in the past.”

Zelinka considered the European meets an opportunity for a tune-up before the Games.

“I am looking forward to competing well, putting performances down when the time comes for it, and also kind of testing out some of my training for the Olympics: my eating schedules throughout the events, the mental side from the sports psychology stuff. I want to be aware and take notes and see what I need to work on when I come home.… I really want to get the most out of [the competitions] and obviously compete well.”

Zelinka’s twenty-first-place performance in Austria was not up to her usual high ranking. In France, however, she led at the end of the first day but fouled out three times on the long jump in the second day of competition. On the other hand, her coach explained that she ran her fastest hurdles and fastest two-hundred-metres ever.

In May 2007, Zelinka beat the Canadian total point record in Gotzis, Austria, with a point total of 6,343, topping her former record from Gotzis in May 2006 of 6,314.

Women heptathletes compete in seven events: the one-hundred-metre hurdles, the high jump, the shot put, the two-hundred-metre race, the long jump, the javelin throw, and the eight-hundred-metre race. The latter two events were added to the women’s pentathlon at the Olympics in the early eighties, bringing the total number of events to seven, requiring a change in name from “pentathlon” to “heptathlon.”

Long jump technique is not the only thing that Zelinka has changed since her injury last year.

“Since my injury, I had some tests done by a homeopath, who said I should be avoiding glutens, eggs, cow dairy, cashews, and pineapple,” says Zelinka.

Based on blood samples, the Women’s Health Clinic in Edmonton, Alberta, recommended the changes to her diet.

“So I tried it out to find out whether I would feel any different,” she says.

She admits that she first consulted with the clinic to address issues involving inflammation recovering from her injury, but she remained on the diet because of lifestyle.

“I don’t feel sick when I eat these foods,” says Zelinka, “but without them I do feel better. And I feel less tired.”

She tries not to follow the diet too strictly, as it might be difficult to maintain while travelling.

So, what is Zelinka looking forward to most at the Olympics?

“Oh, God,” said Zelinka. “It’s just something that I’ve always thought of, and it’s always been at the back of my mind forever, and so these are my first [Games]. I try to prepare how I can, but I know that there’s just so much there that’s going to be unexpected and exciting and crazy. I’m excited to live in the moment, and I know that I’m going to perform well so long as I’m healthy, and I just really want to enjoy it. And when I enjoy it, I worry less. So I want it to be a good experience.”