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LONDON - With the BMX events kicking off today in the Olympics, Utah native Arielle Martin suffered a setback in her long and now bumpy road to recovery.
Martin suffered an injury last week just before leaving for the Olympics. She has been in a California hospital over the past week with a punctured lung and a lacerated liver.
Martin and her husband Mike Verhaaren had been seeing improvement in the Olympian, including being able to get around, taking walks outside the hospital and thinking they could be going home soon. However, her liver had a complication and she had to go in for a third surgery to place a stint in it.
While the whole ordeal hasn't been pleasant the worst part of this new problem is that she is actually in worse pain than she had been in at any point leading up to this complication. This will keep them in the hospital for a lot longer than originally planned.
Verhaaren gave a tongue-in-cheek silver lining to the ordeal by saying this will at least keep her away from hovering over the internet watching results of her sport, which could have bummed her out all over again.
Another somewhat ironic silver lining is that her hometown of Cedar Hills, Utah made today Arielle Martin Day. The released statement from the city states that Martin "Exemplifies the traits, abilities and drive that inspire others in our community to pursue their own personal goals and dreams."
She missed the Olympics in 2008 with a bad run, 2012 with a bad crash but those that know her won't rule out 2016 in Rio for Martin to attempt and Olympic debut.
