Manteo Mitchell Broken Leg: U.S. 4x400M Runner Finishes Olympic Relay After Breaking Leg
Manteo Mitchell heard the POP! and knew it wasn’t good. “It felt like somebody literally just snapped my leg in half,” he said.
The American sprinter had 200 meters to go in the first leg of the 4x400-meter relay preliminaries Thursday and a decision to make: keep running or stop and lose the race. To him, it was never much of a choice.
He finished the lap and limped to the side to watch the Americans finish the race and qualify easily for the final. A few hours later, doctors confirmed what he suspected: He had run the last half-lap with a broken left fibula.
“I heard it and I felt it,” Mitchell told The Associated Press. “But I figured it’s what almost any person would’ve done in that situation.”