England gymnast Gabriel Langton, who was stretchered off after a horror fall from the high bars during the men's team competition at the Commonwealth Games, says his initial reaction was frustration at potentially costing his team a medal. Scans later revealed he escaped with heavy bruising to his neck and no life-changing injuries.
The fall and immediate reaction
Langton was competing in the team final on Friday when he landed on his neck after a mistake on the high bars. He was taken away on a stretcher and spent 24 hours in hospital. “I remember pretty much all of it,” he said. “Because we were slightly behind in the competition, I remember trying to go for as close to perfection as I could. It went slightly wrong and then I was in quite a lot of pain when I fell down.”
He recalled hearing the crowd react and being told to stay still. “I heard a lot of people in the arena, as they went ‘ooh’. I got told to stay as still as I could on the mat. Then I was in a brace so I couldn’t look around and see people’s reactions.” His first thought was to get back up. “Initially I thought I needed to get back on the bar to finish my routine,” he said. “The team were behind. It felt like I could have contributed to the team score. So I was disappointed in myself.”
Team silver and relief
While lying in the medical room in a neck brace, England’s national coach informed him that the team had won silver. “It was about 10 or 15 minutes later,” Langton said. “He was slightly worried, but to make it a bit more positive he told me straight away: ‘You have either just won a gold or silver medal with your team, so congratulations’.”
Langton admitted fearing a serious injury. “On the evening of when it happened, and then the early morning after, I was struggling to ignore that side of it because I didn’t know. I knew I could talk still, I could move a lot of things. Then when I got the scans back, it was a big relief.” Asked if he felt lucky, he said: “After it happened, I didn’t feel lucky at all. I was annoyed about what had happened. But looking back at it and having seen the video, I suppose it could have very easily gone a different way.”
Recovery and outlook
Langton does not expect to compete at the European Championships next month but hopes to return to training soon after being cleared of concussion. “The second scan I had said there’s some swelling in my neck, which I think is to be expected. My back has tightened up a little bit as well, but I don’t think that’s too surprising. It’s nothing too serious and hopefully won’t be too long.”
He described the incident as a freak accident. “I’ve done that skill so many times – probably about 10,000 times and this has happened once. If you look at those stats then you can see this was a freak accident. I’ll be pretty confident I can put that to one side.”
