Georgia Godwin's teammates have pledged to fulfil their finals promise without her after the top-ranked gymnast was ruled out of the Paris Olympics with an achilles injury.
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A seven-time national champion, Godwin was preparing for this week's Australian titles when she suffered the heartbreaking blow, taking off during a floor routine in training.
It's ruled her out of a second Olympic campaign, a cruel blow after she'd helped qualify the women's artistic team for the first time since 2012.
Godwin is the 2022 Commonwealth Games all-around gold medallist and last year had a move on the uneven bars named after her.
A tearful Godwin posted about the injury on Instagram, entering the frame on crutches.
"This is definitely not the news I want to be sharing with you right now, a couple days out from nationals, less than 80 days from Paris," the 26-year-old said.
"I've sustained an achilles injury, it's extremely heartbreaking.
"I'll be heading back to Brisbane, having a chat with the surgeon to see where we go from there.
"I'm not entirely sure what the recovery process looks like moving forward, but I've got an amazing team around me and I'm trying to be as positive as possible."
The Australian team narrowly missed the top eight at last year's world championships and have vowed to go one better in Paris.
"Whoever goes over there will be representing Georgia and Australia," Emma Nedov said.
"She'll be in the background the entire time and the reality of making a final is still very much the goal.
"To have a team going for 2024 ... I don't think people realise how inspiring and motivating it is."
Meanwhile, fellow Olympic hopeful Blake Rutherford has also suffered a significant injury in training.
As Australia's top men's trampoline gymnast in Olympic qualifying, Rutherford had been in a strong position to earn a place in Paris dependent on the allocation of a quota place.
Gymnastics Australia interim chief executive and high performance director Chris O'Brien said the hope was to qualify 14 gymnasts, three more than competed in Tokyo.
"There's some things to unfold, but it's a step up," he said.
"The start point is having people in the contest ... we believe we can get a team into the top eight (of the women's teams event).
"We're going to keep striving, push our way into top eight then who knows, it's game on from there."
Australian Associated Press
