Italian Gymnast In Medically Induced Coma After Fall At World University Games

Italian males’s gymnast Lorenzo Bonicelli is in a medically induced coma after struggling a neck damage on the FISU Summer World University Games. Held in Germany’s Rhine-Ruhr area, the 2025 FISU Summer World University Games introduced greater than 8,500 student-athletes and officers to compete in 18 disciplines.

Bonicelli is simply 23 years outdated and competes for the Ghislanzoni Gal gymnastics membership positioned in Lecco, Italy, simply north of Milan.

Like his nationwide teammates, Bonicelli was probably aiming for choice to the Italian delegation that can compete on the 2025 World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia.

When the damage occurred, Bonicelli and his teammates had been competing within the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics staff last and qualification spherical. The Italian staff started the competitors on flooring train after which continued with a second rotation on pommel horse. In rotation three, catastrophe struck on the nonetheless rings.

Bonicelli competes probably the most tough and dangerous dismounts in males’s nonetheless rings – a triple again. The dismount requires greater than three full rotations as a way to land cleanly. On Wednesday, Bonicelli got here up brief, touchdown immediately on his neck.

According to Ginnasticando Italia, medical employees current on the enviornment instantly rushed to Bonicelli’s aspect upon affect. The athlete was finally carried out of the sector on a medical stretcher.

Due to the emotional misery inflicted by their teammate’s damage, the Italian staff withdrew from competitors following the third rotation.

On Thursday, July 24, an FIG official confirmed the severity of Bonicelli’s situation, sharing that the athlete had undergone near-immediate surgical procedure on Wednesday.

Steve Butcher, the Apparatus Supervisor for males’s nonetheless rings, shared the following replace on Bonicelli’s situation:

“Lorenzo (Bonicelli) is in a medically induced coma after surgery last night. It will take 10 or more days to know his condition. The entire gymnastics family is pulling for Lorenzo’s full recovery,” he added.

Severe Injury Risk in Gymnastics

Though neck and spinal accidents stay a palpable threat in males’s and girls’s gymnastics, extreme accidents – inflicting paralysis or dying – are uncommon.

In 2019, a collegiate gymnast at Southern Connecticut State University died after “sustaining a spinal injury” throughout a routine coaching train on the uneven bars.

In 1988, American elite gymnast Julissa Gomez was paralyzed in a vaulting accident. She died in 1991 on account of problems from her accidents.

Soviet star gymnast Elena Mukhina suffered the same destiny. Known for coaching the now-banned Thomas salto, Mukhina broke her neck two weeks earlier than the opening of the 1980 Olympics, leaving her completely quadriplegic.

Mukhina later revealed her issues about competing the factor in a 1991 documentary. “My damage may have been anticipated…it was inevitable. I had stated greater than as soon as that I might break my neck doing that factor,” she stated.

Though she raised issues to her coach, Mikhail Klimenko, Mukhina was dismissed. Klimenko stated, “people like (her) don’t break their necks.” She died in 2006 at age 46.

“Gymnastics is a difficult sport that carries a considerable damage threat,” the American Journal of Emergency Medicine shared, including that the game’s head and neck accidents stay “under-studied.’”

In gymnastics, probably the most minor adjustment could make a major distinction.

The journal attested to the positive line between security and tragedy in a 2023 research: “Epidemiology and patterns of gymnastics-related head & neck trauma injuries.” The research cited Simone Biles’ expertise on the Tokyo Olympics as proof of the danger.

Biles skilled “the twisties,” described because the “phenomenon of losing air space awareness while twisting,” the journal says. Though seemingly trivial in title, the phenomenon can “render a gymnast unable to land a twisting maneuver correctly…as such, it’s unsurprising that creative gymnasts expertise excessive charges of damage.”

“Twisties” or not, timing is important in gymnastics. The journal shares a sobering discovering: “the window for proper launch parameters and profitable dismount from the lads’s excessive bar has been reported to be ∼73–84 milliseconds.”

That is, 0.073 to 0.085 seconds – a fraction of a second – can distinguish between a secure dismount and main damage.

Bonicelli’s analysis remains to be pending following his surgical procedure, with Butcher testifying to a roughly 10-day wait to disclose the extent of his accidents. The broader gymnastics neighborhood has shortly wished him a speedy restoration and anxiously awaits an replace.

Bonicelli’s Instagram bio reads: “Fight until the end.”