Dribbling to Europe

No matter how healthy you are or how ambitious you may be, injuries are always a concern in the back of athletes heads and may cause a road block in a goal you are trying to achieve.

For international student-athlete, Elle Clark, a freshman basketball player from London, an injury on the court is not going to stop her from making her dreams come true.  Clark will be trying out for two British national women’s basketball team this summer as mentioned in the daily49er.  She has previously played on the England Junior team since 2006 and led the team to a division championship last summer.  This summer she hopes to play on two teams despite recovering from a high ankle sprain.

Freshman forward, Elle Clark, takes a
breather in the middle of a game
photo by Steven Carcano

"I hope to make the [under-20] team and play more minutes than I did last year [while I was on the junior national team]," Clark said. "I should be a role player on the team, so hopefully that will lead to me getting selected for the World University Games, which [starts] a month afterwards."

Clark has been battling an ankle injury since the end of the season in early March. Ankle injuries are common in basketball players and can be treated. Unfortunately, high ankle sprains are harder to fully recover from than a more common ankle sprain. High ankle sprains usually happen when an ankle rolls outward beyond its normal range of motion and tears the ligament between the tibia and fibula bones as mentioned in an article All About High Ankle Sprains.

“In a high ankle sprain, the ligaments that connect the two lower leg bones together are injured,” explains M. Ramin Modabber, MD, of the Santa Monica Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Group. Modabber continued to describe the injury saying that because of the higher location on the leg, it creates a more severe injury which then requires more time to recover before the athlete is able to fully play again. It can take weeks or months to fully recover from the ankle sprain.

Clarks training has been limited due to her injury, yet she still manages to work out about eight hours week training in preparation for the upcoming try outs. LBSU head coach Jody Wynn said, “It’s just nice to see her  progress in earning this opportunity… We’ll keep our fingers crossed that she makes the squads.”