Hungarian weightlifter suffers horror injury
Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai's first Olympics ended in agony when he dislocated his right elbow during the Olympic weightlifting competition.
Baranyai was trying to snatch 148kg in his third lift in the men's 77-kg division, when his elbow popped out of socket.
No longer able to support the weight of the barbell, his right forearm bent backward. The 24-year-old Hungarian fell to the floor in shock, shaking and crying out in pain.
Hungary's coaching staff and competition officials rushed to Baranyai's aid as he lay on the floor, his arm limp and twisted out of position.
Baranyai was carried off the platform on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.
"There was a dislocation of the elbow but the bones are not broken," Tamas Feher, the Hungarian weightlifting federation chief, said. "They just put it right back, but I think he's lost the rest of the year."
Feher said Baranyai was OK and watching the rest of the weightlifting competition on TV from a his bed at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing.
"It looked really awful," said Benny Johansson, a technical controller at the event. "If the ligaments are damaged then it could take several months to heal."
He said elbow and knee injuries are the most common injuries in the sport, "but the number of injuries are quite small in comparison with the number of athletes. You cannot even compare it with football for example."
A former judo wrestler, Baranyai was Hungary's lone lifter in the Olympics and was ninth in both the snatch and clean and jerk in the European Championship earlier this year while placing 33rd in last year's world championship.
In Beijing, he cleared his first snatch attempts at 140kg and 145kg before loading up the bar at 148kg.
"He's 24 so at least he has two more Olympics," Feher said. "He's our biggest hope for London 2012."
