Tiny Terminator

By Eli Karon
Daily Bruin Contributor

Christie Tedmon is no stranger to injuries. When the Sacramento
native was 12 years old, she missed her feet on a beam dismount,
falling flat on her back, hard enough to knock her out. Tedmon went
into a seizure before being escorted out of the gym in an
ambulance. At the hospital it was discovered she had broken her
thumb as well.

During the first meet of the current gymnastics season, six
years after Tedmon’s first major fall, she again missed her
feet on beam. The consequences were similar, though they came at a
more pivotal point in her career. Tedmon broke the 2-5 metatarsals
on her right foot, but somehow managed to get up and salute the
judges before collapsing in pain.

  EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Gymnast Christie Tedmon shows off her walking boot, which she
has had to wear since breaking her toes earlier this season.

“I looked down and my foot was kind of curled,”
Tedmon said. “I stepped and I could feel everything crunching
inside.”

Doctors predicted she would be out for the rest of the season.
This came as particularly bad news to the freshman, who had trained
hard during the summer and fall quarters. She did everything from
spinning to cardio kickboxing to yoga ““ anything to help her
break into the starting lineup.

“She came in and wanted to compete. Christie realized she
was coming in on a team that was extremely competitive, and it was
going to be very difficult to make the lineup,” head coach
Valorie Kondos Field said. “She just realized what she had to
do and got the job done.”

Kondos Field foresaw Tedmon competing in a couple of events
every now and then, but Tedmon had other plans. With Tedmon’s
incredible work ethic and constant improvement, she found herself
leading off on beam for UCLA at the Super Six Challenge in
Georgia’s Stegeman Coliseum.

The Bruins’ last visit to Stegeman resulted in their
second consecutive national championship. But for Tedmon, this meet
would not end so gloriously.

“Beam has always for the most part been my favorite
event,” Tedmon said. “It comes really easily to
me.”

How ironic then, that in the season’s opening meet, she
would injure herself on the beam.

“As I was going into it I could already tell I was going
crooked,” Tedmon said. “I knew I was going to crash
when I was in the air.”

The fall added to a list of injuries below the knees that reads
like a bad dream: broken ankle, broken fibula and tibia and now,
her broken foot.

The healing process is made easier with the support of friends,
family and teammates. Immediately after the fall, Tedmon’s
foot was so tender she couldn’t rest it on the table while
applying ice. Teammate Alyssa Beckerman held the foot for twenty
minutes while Tedmon iced.

“She’s a role model as far as people who are injured
go,” Beckerman said. “Instead of shying away and not
being enthusiastic, she’s in here supporting us, and that
takes a lot of character.”

Tedmon’s workout regime has picked up right where it left
off, despite the fact that she has been non-weight-bearing since
the time of her accident a month ago. The day the team resumed
practice in Westwood after Tedmon’s accident, she was sitting
in the gym visualizing her routines.

Tedmon is hoping to be healthy by the time regionals and the
National Championships roll around. Though the doctors claim she is
done for the season, Tedmon will do everything in her power to
prove them wrong.

“She’s ready. She’s staying physically,
mentally and emotionally ready to come in and compete,”
Kondos Field said. “She’s turned into a conditioning
Schwarzenegger.”

And much like Arnold, she’ll be back.