Injury sidelines Wiebe, again
Apr. 13, 2010 - Regina Leader-Post
By Ian Hamilton
Kelly Wiebe has been down this path before.
Wiebe, a member of the University of Regina Cougars cross-country and track and field teams, was to compete in the 17th FISU world university cross-country championships on Sunday in Kingston, Ont. However, the 20-year-old product of Swift Current had to withdraw after injuring his right ankle just days before the event.
He suffered a similar fate in 2008 when, during a dominant season with the Cougars, he couldn't compete in the CIS cross-country championships due to a knee injury. Then a stress fracture of a tibia kept him out of the 2009 Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island as well as the first half of the '09 CIS season.
"This has happened to me before -- just not on the world stage," Wiebe said Monday. "This one was pretty devastating. It was to be my first international competition, so I was really excited. It was a week away and I was really pumped. It was the only thing I could think about.
"When (the injury) happened, I was bummed out for five days. But I've accepted it, so it just adds fuel to the fire."
Wiebe recovered from his previous injuries to win a bronze medal at the 2009 CIS championships in Kingston, where he also was named a first-team all-Canadian. As a result, he was a lock to be named to the six-man team that was to represent Canada at the FISU event, which was run on the same course on which the CIS championships had been staged.
But one of his pre-meet workouts cost him the opportunity.
"(The injury) came on suddenly," Wiebe said. "I had a really good time trial on Good Friday -- one of the fastest times I've ever run, in fact. The next day, I couldn't put any weight on my leg. I didn't know what it was."
The initial prognosis was a stress fracture, but Wiebe said he's leaning toward a tendon injury.
He expects to have an X-ray done in the next day or so to determine the true extent of the problem, but he said the injury "isn't going to put me on the sideline for too long."
Wiebe initially was to leave Thursday for the FISU event, but that didn't happen. His previous experience with injury actually helped ease his pain this time around.
"It made it a lot easier," confirmed Wiebe who, because he wasn't in Kingston, was on hand Friday to be honoured during the U of R's athletics awards night for being an all-Canadian.
"Representing the university team means quite a bit to me. It means a lot to all of us. I consider FISU more of an individual race; there's less of a team aspect to it. I was probably more devastated a couple of years ago."
That said, he knows he'll have to wait a while for his next chance to represent Canada on the world stage.
"World events are hard to come by," Wiebe admitted. "There's never a guarantee that you're going to make something like that. My next opportunity is the world cross-country championships in Spain, and I'd have to qualify at nationals for that.
"FISU won't happen again until my fifth year, so I'll just have to wait to get that chance."
The Canadian men's team finished fourth at the FISU event behind Japan, Spain and Great Britain. Canada's women were third behind Great Britain and Australia.