Brutal photos of star’s sickening injury

The Tokyo Olympics paused for a moment as a star athlete was taken away in a wheelchair following an ugly incident.

Belgium’s decathlon athlete Thomas Van der Plaetsen has suffered an ugly knee injury in the long jump section of the decathlon at the Tokyo Olympics.

TV commentators described the injury as a hyperextension.

Replays showed Van de Plaetsen’s right leg buckled at the point of him putting his foot on the board.

Van de Plaetsen’s right leg buckled at the point of him putting his foot on the board

It’, s not yet known how bad the injury is. Picture: David Ramos/Getty Images

To make matters worse, the leg that buckled was the one he used to launch himself.

Something was clearly wrong as soon as he took off with his body contorting through the air before he landed face first in the sand.

He was motionless for an extended period of time and stayed on the ground with his face buried into the dirt.

The competition ground to a halt. Picture: Rob Carr/Getty Images

He was taken away in a wheelchair. David Ramos/Getty Images

He was eventually able to be helped to his feet and was taken away from the track in a wheelchair.

Van der Plaetsen had been in fourth place after the opening event, the 100m.

After the long jump, the decathletes compete in shot put, high jump and the 400m.

They will then complete the 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m on Thursday.

The exact nature of his injury is still yet to be confirmed.

“That is such a shame for van der Plaetsen,” a Channel 7 commentator said as an official checked on the stricken athlete.

“You just don’t want to see that for an athlete after all those weeks, months and years of training. He was so tentative when he was sprinting there. That’s awful to see.”

Another

commentator questioned whether van der Plaetsen had rushed the entry for his first jump.

“I don’t even know that he went back to his mark,” he said.

Commentators said the moment was “awful to see”. Picture:Patrick Smith/Getty Images

“It looked like he shortened his run-up, ran down there and ‘see how I can chop it’. All of these athletes think ‘if I can just give it that one thing, one good blow, I can move on’.”

A cancer survivor who was diagnosed in 2014 when an anti-doping test sparked questions about his health, van der Plaetsen recovered from chemotherapy to become the 2016 European champion.

He finished eighth at the Rio Olympics later that year.

Van der Plaetsen sat 17th after the first leg of the Tokyo 2020 competition, having finished the 100m heats in a time of 11.05 seconds.

Earlier, Australian Ash Moloney made a flying start to the decathlon.

The 21-year-old set a personal best of 10.34 seconds in the opening 100m and backed it up with a solid 7.64m in the long jump.

Originally published as Brutal photos of star’s sickening injury