NEW YORK (January 12, 2010) - Last November, Kody Lostroh won his first world title having competed for half the season with a badly injured left elbow.
This year, if J.B. Mauney intends to win a World Championship of his own, he’ll have to do it with a damaged right knee.
“J.B. tore his medial collateral ligament,” said Dr. Tandy Freeman, in a Podcast posted this weekend on Event Center. “It’s the ligament that most people would think of as the inside part of the knee.
“He’s had some problems with that healing, which is sometimes the case. He needs to have it fixed so that one, his knee is more stable, and two, he wouldn’t have so much pain.”
According to Freeman, the tear is located where the ligament attaches to the femur. Also at issue is the presence of scar tissue, calcified cartilage and a buildup of excess bone.
It’s an especially painful injury, because as Freeman pointed out, “It’s the part of the knee that sits against the bull.”
In an interview prior to Round 2 of the New York City Invitational, Mauney admitted, “It (doesn’t) feel the best before I get on and after I get off, but during the ride I don’t really—I put it out of my mind. When I get off and as soon as I hit the ground I feel it.”
There’s no getting around the pain whether he makes the whistle or not. As Mauney said in the interview, it makes it “a little hard” for him to get away once he’s on the ground.
He is currently wearing a brace to help stabilize the knee. However, the brace does nothing to mitigate the pain and actually can intensify it.
A padded, donut-shaped disc sits between the brace and Mauney’s knee, which they hope will limit the pressure to “around the edge of the pad instead of across the entire pad.”
“That gets the brace off the tender spot just a little bit,” added Freeman, “but it’s not 100 percent.”
To surgically repair Mauney’s right knee would require a three to four-month layoff before returning to competition. As Freeman said, “That makes it pretty hard for a guy to have a shot at a World Championship, because you (have) to be in the Top 10 going into the last few events to really have a shot at it. And to be in the Top 10 you have to be here most weeks.”
“I told him we’re going to wait for awhile,” said Mauney, who is considering having the surgery in mid-May and then using the two-month long summer break to heal. “I’ve thought about it because over the summer I wouldn’t miss but a couple of events, but I don’t know what I’ll do.
“I’ve told [Dr. Freeman] when I win the world – if I win the world – or whenever I win the world, I’m going to take the time off after that and get it fixed, so I thought about getting it done this summer, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do just yet.”
Freeman said that Mauney claims the injury hasn’t been a factor.
Statistically speaking, it’s hard to argue with that assessment. In three events, Mauney’s covered 8 of 10 bulls, finished in the Top 5 in two of three events and has a 70-point advantage over Guilherme Marchi at the top of the standings.
“But there’s no way it’s not a factor, to some degree,” added Freeman, who said that barring any additional injuries, he suspects the surgery won’t take place until 2011.
