Gymnast overcomes torn Achilles tendons in one year

For once in her life, Bri Guy, senior in physical activity and health, said she knew her stubbornness would pay off.

Guy had torn both of her Achilles tendons in a floor routine against Alabama, but she didn’t know it immediately.
“I thought I hit a dead spot in the floor, so I was thinking I’d just go ahead and continue with the routine,” Guy said. “The first thing out of my mouth was, ‘Why am I on the ground?’ There was no indication that something to this magnitude happened.”
After she was evaluated, the doctors gave her a string of words no gymnast ever wants to hear.
“At that moment, they honestly thought I was going to be done,” Guy said.
Recovering from one torn Achilles is a six to eight month process; tearing both should’ve kept her out of competitions for more than a year, well past the time the senior was scheduled to graduate. But Guy said she refused to accept the prognosis, despite what so many people said to her.
“They thought it was going to be over a year before I was even doing gymnastics again,” Guy said. “But I wasn’t really giving myself any other option. I was saying, ‘This is how we’re going to get back, and I’m going to be back competing my senior year.’”
Guy’s teammates, who have seen her competitive spirit so many times before, said they didn’t believe she was done either.
“Honestly, I don’t think anybody believed it,” said Megan Walker, gymnast earning her second degree in marketing. “I don’t think one person did. Not for a moment did we think that she wouldn’t be competing again.”
Surgery followed, and several weeks of zipping around campus on a motorized scooter came soon after. But once Guy was ready to take the next step on her long road to recovery, she had to relearn how to take a step.
She had to learn how to walk again.
“I’m a really stubborn person, so the whole, ‘Oh, you’re going to have to learn how to walk again,’ thing didn’t really compute,” Guy said. “That’s not the case. It’s a whole different ballpark when you have to figure out what you need to move first to actually walk.”
Nine months later, Guy was back on the floor competing in the sport she grew to love. However, she said she knows she couldn’t have beaten her prognosis without support.
“It was motivation from my coaches, all the training staff and my teammates,” Guy said. “Really, if they hadn’t been up my case saying, ‘Hey don’t feel sorry for yourself,’ or ‘Hey, you can do this, keep trucking, just do you,’ it would’ve taken 10 times longer.”
Coach Jeff Graba said he couldn’t have been more supportive of her speedy recovery.
“From my aspect, I think she needed a gymnastics advocate,” Graba said. “Even that night [of her injuries] we were talking, ‘What’s our plan to get you back?’ We were encouraging the doctors and the therapy, but at the same being smart about it.”
Graba watched the entire process, from when Guy crumpled into a heap in February 2014 to when she began doing gymnastics activities again and to when she finally was able to compete again against North Carolina in January.
Graba said seeing Guy back in the gym in front of a crowd was emotional, but he had gotten his more emotional moments with her out of the way during her difficult trek back to health.
“My emotional stuff with her was the first day she was able to do gymnastics again, and the first day she was doing all these tricks,” Graba said. “There were milestones along the way that I had already invested my emotions in at that point. (Her first event) was a big moment for me too, but it wasn’t as emotional for me as some of the other ones, the practice days that nobody else saw.”
This season, Guy has led the way for an Auburn team that is currently ranked No. 8 in the nation, setting a career-best in uneven bars against then-No. 12 Arkansas, and helping the Tigers to some of their highest scores in the program’s history.
When all is said and done, Walker said the lessons Guy has imprinted on the members of the team will pay dividends down the road. One lesson, however, has stood out among the rest.
“(The biggest lesson is) self-motivation,” Walker said. “There are plenty of days when it’s hard to come to the gym, when it’s hard to work out. But you can’t say it’s hard for you, when the girl with two Achilles tears is coming back and doing it.”
Senior Night took place Friday, March 13, and it wasn’t too long ago where Guy could’ve been sitting on the sidelines, watching her teammates go out on a high note.
Guy said she knows she should have been done competing.
If Guy didn’t have the drive and determination to get back to where she is today, her last memory of gymnastics would’ve been at a meet lying on a mat, unable to walk.
Instead, Guy can hang her hat on being stubborn.
“If I hadn’t been sticking with it and telling myself that I’m going to reach this goal by this time, then I don’t know what I would’ve done,” Guy said. “Appropriate stubbornness, I guess. You’re going to have those days where you’re more stubborn. I think I’ve learned when to be stubborn and when to push it and when not to.”