The college gymnast who broke both her legs called the career-ending injury a 'small setback' said s

Publish date: 2024-06-26
2019-04-15T13:51:22Z

Samantha Cerio, the Auburn University gymnast who dislocated her knees and tore multiple ligaments in her legs during a floor routine, called the career-ending injury a "small setback" in an interview with NBC's "TODAY" show on Monday morning.

Cerio, a 22-year-old senior at Auburn, was injured while trying to perform a blind landing on a tumbling pass at an NCAA regional competition on April 5.

She told "TODAY" about the injury: "When I had landed that one I felt like something was a little wrong, and I thought I had just hyperextended my knees until I looked down and that wasn't the case. Then that's when I saw what had happened, that's when like the pain kind of started to set in and it got worse."

Two days after the injury Cerio announced she was retiring from gymnastics.

Read more: A college gymnast who broke both her legs during a floor routine is urging people to stop sharing videos of the injury

Friday night was my final night as a gymnast. After 18 years I am hanging up my grips and leaving the chalk behind. I couldn’t be prouder of the person that gymnastics has made me to become. It’s taught me hard work, humility, integrity, and dedication, just to name a few. It’s given me challenges and road blocks that I would have never imagined that has tested who I am as a person. It may not have ended the way I had planned, but nothing ever goes as planned. Thank you Auburn family for giving me a home and a chance to continue doing the sport that will always be my first love. I am honored to have had the privilege to represent the navy and orange AU for the past 4 years with my team by my side. Thank you for letting me share my passion with you. Thank you for letting me be a part of something bigger than myself. War Eagle Always 💙🧡

A post shared by Samantha Cerio (@sam_cerio) on Apr 7, 2019 at 10:30am PDTApr 7, 2019 at 10:30am PDT

But in the coming weeks, Cerio will be graduating from college with an aerospace engineering degree, and according to Auburn, she has a job lined up at Boeing in Seattle where she will work on rockets as a structural design analysis engineer.

"Im really excited just because I have so many positive things coming up," Cerio told the "TODAY" show. "I mean, this is a small setback, but it's ... just another thing to get through … Even though that was my last gymnastics meet, everything we do, everything I have done and trained for …has always been for my team. Just knowing that I have their support behind me 100%, … that's always helped me."

Cerio previously urged people to stop sharing video of her injury on social media.

She told people on Twitter last week, "My pain is not your entertainment," according to The Washington Post.

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