Patricia Mamona points to recovery to return to top level after Olympics

Portugal’s Patricia Mamona, silver medalist in the triple jump at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, said in a statement on Friday that her knee has fully recovered to compete again after Paris 2024.

The athlete’s consultant issued a statement explaining the injuries that have kept the athlete out of Paris 2024, stressing that “having achieved her dream of participating in the Olympic Games and improving on the result achieved in Tokyo, the athlete is now focused on determining the next steps in the treatment of her knee injury with the goal of returning to 100% training to be able to compete at the highest level.”

At the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, Mamona won the silver medal, losing to Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, who is also absent from the French capital due to injury.

“In March 2023, athlete Patricia Mamona was injured during the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, where she still won a bronze medal,” the statement begins with details.

At the time, the 35-year-old Sporting athlete admitted that she defended her European Athletics Champion title in Istanbul on March 4, 2023, a day after suffering an injury in qualifying.

That day, he won a bronze medal in the third major competition final he had competed in due to injury, such as the 2022 Eugene Outdoor World Championships in the United States and then the 2022 Munich European Championships.

Mamona has since missed the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, later admitting in an interview with Lusa that he feels better than he did in the run-up to Tokyo 2020.

“Although I think I’m mentally strong enough, there’s always the question of whether we can come back and get back to our best form. Right now I’m better than I was at the same time two years ago. Even compared to the year of the Games, I’m better,” Mamona, who was also absent from the Roma2024 European Championships last June, told Luce on November 14, 2023.

Now, more than eight months later, the fears he also expressed have been confirmed, with his absence from the Portuguese Championship in Coimbra at the weekend confirming the absence of Paris 2024.

“It’s also a bit of a ‘hunger’ that I had, wanting to train and not finish the training, and feeling like I gave everything. These mental ups and downs helped me get up because I was down. Now I’m of course happy, but I don’t want to launch too many rockets because the rockets have to be launched on the right day, which I hope will be at the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024,” he said at the time on the sidelines of the program web summit, national record holder (January 15 in Tokyo, 2021).

According to a statement today from Sporting’s athlete press office, Mamona has been “struggling with a chronic injury that, despite all the treatment and effort the athlete has undergone, has since limited her training and performances, preventing him from training at 100 pounds.” % or compete.”

And “recently, a new knee injury has worsened his situation, making it impossible for him to participate in the competitions required for Olympic qualification.”

“Athlete Patricia Mamona remains determined and confident in her recovery, hoping to once again bring joy to Portuguese athletics and its fans,” said the aforementioned statement, in which the jumper wishes her “greatest success” for Portugal’s mission at the 2024 Games in Paris.