Bad news for Julie Allemand and the Belgian Cats. The playmaker suffered a serious ankle injury during a match against Asvel Lyon. She will have to undergo surgery and will be out for 3 to 4 months. She can forget about her WNBA journey. “Julie seems to be a fighter, not passive,” says Sven van Camp of the national team. “She doesn’t panic.”
The remainder of the season is over for Julie Allemand, a statement from the Belgian FA said this morning.
In the French League match against Saint-Amand, the 27-year-old strongman's ankle ligaments were seriously injured.
He added: “In consultation with the medical staff in Lyon and the Belgian team, she will undergo surgery next week.” “She faces 3 to 4 months of rehabilitation. She can rely on the guidance of both parties.”
Things are not going well for Allemand: at the beginning of February she also had a bad knee and missed the opening match of the Olympic qualifying tournament in Antwerp.
She was there again in the second match against Senegal and contributed more than her share in winning and qualifying for the Games.
We have complete confidence in the medical staff and in Allemand's hard work ethic.
Sven Van Camp, High Performance Director of the Belgian Cat Company
Now she is in danger of losing that. The Belgian Cats teams will open their Olympic journey by facing Germany on July 29, then a match between Belgium and the United States of America on August 1, and Japan and Belgium on August 4.
The Cats are aiming for a medal at the Games and, as European champions, they want to perform better than they did in the previous Games, when they narrowly lost to Japan in the quarter-finals.
Allemand wanted to prepare himself for those important Olympics with a new adventure in the WNBA. But the Los Angeles Sparks need to cut it.
It will be a race against time. “Her participation in Paris will depend entirely on rehabilitation,” says Sven Van Camp, Cats’ high performance director.
“But we will not speculate, because this is a very serious matter in major sport. We have every confidence in both the medical frameworks and also in the hard work ethic that characterizes it.”
“We are looking to her and the entire Belgian Kats family for the best scenario, but the absolute priority is full rehabilitation.”
(Read more below the tweet)
“Don't panic”
The news was a bit of a shock to the feline entourage. “Everyone knows Julie is important to our team.”
Van Camp doesn't want to dramatize it right away. “It is a concern for us at the moment, not a blow yet. Because there is still time and we can have good hopes. If this news comes a month before the Games, we would prefer to call it a blow.”
“We shouldn't say that yet. We can be optimistic. We won't panic. Unfortunately, Julie already has some experience dealing with injuries. She certainly won't panic either.”
“She communicates with us very well to coordinate all of this stuff. She seems combative, certainly not passive,” Van Camp Allemand heard.
“But she also doesn't want to get ahead of herself, neither in the negative nor in the positive sense. She's a pro at it.”
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