Katie Moon laments hectic schedule since 2019 for athletes suffering Achilles injuries

Olympic and world champion Katie Moon has reiterated the hectic schedule of top athletes in the last five years as the major cause of injuries, particularly Achilles, in an Olympic year.

Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas won't be able to defend her Olympic gold medal in Paris this year after suffering an Achilles tendon injury last month. She confirmed her absence from the quadrennial event through an Instagram post on April 12.

British long jumper Jazmin Sawyers was the latest to be ruled out of the Paris Olympics owing to a ruptured Achilles. The 2023 European champion was devastated to miss out on her third Olympic Games after finishing eighth in both the Rio (2016) and Tokyo (2020) editions.

Moon, who will aim to defend her Olympic gold in the women's pole vault event, endured a similar issue. In early March, the 32-year-old world champion expressed her frustration over her Achilles injury but promised a path of healing on the road to the Summer Olympics.

An X user curiously questioned the Achilles injury hampering athletes' journey in an important year.

"Bro why does everyone have achilles issues this season," the user asked.

Responding to the user, Katie Moon attributed the grueling workload of athletes in recent years.

"Because we’ve been “on” every year since 2019," the Tokyo Olympic gold medallist wrote.

World Athletics Championship 2019 (Doha), Tokyo Olympics 2020 (held in 2021), 2022 Commonwealth Games (Birmingham), World Athletics Championship 2023 (Budapest), and Pan American Games 2023 (Santiago) are some of the major global events held in the recent years.

Katie Moon dismisses shoe quality leads to Achilles

Following Jazmin Sawyers' Achilles injury update, some questions regarding the quality of shoe equipment causing trouble for athletes were brought up on social media platforms. However, Katie Moon denied the claim and stressed that athletes couldn't find adequate break periods, with every year scheduled with a major event.

"Unfortunately I think the issue is more that we haven’t had a “down” year since 2018. Every year since then (because even 2020 we didn’t know Covid was going to cancel everything until we had already had full Olympic style preseasons) we’ve not really had a break. Just adds up😕," she wrote on her X handle.

Katie Moon has just competed in three events this year at the National Pole Vault Summit (Reno) in January, the USA Indoor Championships (Albuquerque) in February, and the World Athletics Indoor Championships (Glasgow) in March. She will be back in action at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon on May 25.