“Gymnastics has been my entire life, and now it’s no more,” said an American Olympic legend when she retired in 2012. A career that saw 4 Olympic gold medals, and 3 golds in World championships alongside so many other accolades came to a sudden end just because the gymnast went against her coach’s words. Disobeying her coach’s only one rule led to a career-ending injury for the Olympian. What was that?

In a recent interview with Kate Mackz, Shawn Johnson talked about how her coach was not like the other ones. She said, “He kind of went against the grain and had a different system with things. A lot of times in gymnastics, coaches are very strict. You can play other sports. You can kind of go be a kid. He had no rules.”

The gymnast’s coach wanted her to try everything, “You can go horseback riding. You can play soccer. You can play lacrosse, like whatever you want to do,” the Olympian said. But he had one rule, “In my gym is you can’t ski, which I abide by, abide by.” Of course, she abides by it now after the ski stuck to her boot, led to a torn ACL, ending her gymnastics career.

Recalling how she developed the will to ski, she goes back to her first retirement after the Beijing Olympics, she said, “I officially retired the first time right after the Beijing Olympics. And I was like, you know what? I want to learn to ski because I’ve done everything else.” The next thing she knew was she fell in love with it, in love enough to go for it on her 18th birthday.

The Olympic gold medalist who retired with an unfulfilled dream further said, “My 18th birthday, we went skiing. It was cliche. Last run, last day. Easy run.”And that is when it happened, she recalls “Nothing, it’s just a freak accident. I took a fall and my ski didn’t come out of my boot.”

Johnson got nostalgic about how she had been fit in her entire career after Mackz pointed out how these injuries led to a lifetime of compromise. The Olympian spoke about how her entire career was very healthy. She only had shin splints and a couple of stress fractures, but nothing serious.

She remembered as soon as it happened, “I was sitting on the mountain and I knew I was like. That wasn’t a normal sound or feeling.” She then skied down the mountain. This was the first time she had torn her ACL, but she just didn’t know, which made it worse. She didn’t go to the doctor for two months until she couldn’t turn, “And if I turned, I would buckle. And I remember when I finally went to the doctor, they were like, oh, honey, like, it’s your ACL, you’re you’re blown and did the full surgery rehabbed.”

Instead of rehab, the athlete chose to cheat the system.

“I don’t think I fully rehabbed properly. I think I cheated that system a little bit. Went back too early, went back into competing in gymnastics,” she said. Shawn Johnson made her return to the spot in 2010 while recovering from the ACL. And that was the first time she felt vulnerable in my body. The tough competition took its toll on the gymnast.

After retiring from the sport in 2012, she went to see the doctor and had to get five knee surgeries. She recalled, “When I finally retired a second time, I went back to the doctor and they’re like, it didn’t hold like it’s super loose. It’s so I redid it all again.”

Remember when she said she cheated the system? Yeah well, she “kept feeling like I could beat the system. I’m like, oh, I’ll do it a little bit faster. No.” Eventually, she did not cheat the system but only played into it, bringing an end to a glorious career.

Shawn Johnson’s second run

The gymnast with four Olympic gold medals made her return in 2010 after the ACL surgery. The stage was the 2011 Pan American Games and the gymnast who was still in rehab scored 14.925 on the vault, 14.400 on uneven bars, and 12.875 on the Balance Beam.

All of this contributed to an all-around score of 42.200 for Shawn Johnson. This performance helped her win the silver medal on the uneven bars and contributed to the USA’s gold in the competition.

​At the 2011 U.S. National Gymnastics Championships, Johnson competed on the balance beam and uneven bars achieving a fourth-place finish and a sixth-place finish, respectively. In September 2011, she went on to participate in the World Championships Selection Camp, but she didn’t do much here. The next goal was the 2012 Olympics.

The 2008 Olympic champion did not make it to the 2012 Olympics. As a matter of fact, she did not even make it to the Olympic trails. Reason? The knee. The lack of rehab and the strained completion had hurt her knee to the point where continuing to train would have potentially damaged her knee further.

It required a total knee reconstruction, which would have affected her ability to move in the coming years. Therefore, Shawn Johnson retired from the sport in 2012. A sad end!