1980: Tsukahara Sustains a Cervical Sprain on a Roll-Out Skill

Tsukahara Mitsuo opens his autobiography not with triumph but with catastrophe. Rather than beginning with his eponymous vault or the dismount that made him famous, or with any of his five Olympic gold medals, he begins in February 1980, when he sustained a cervical spine injury, which effectively ended his bid for a fourth consecutive [ ]