‘I was in bed for two months this spring’: rider’s incredible comeback to compete at the Olympics

The comeback of Yessin Rahmouni has to be one of the most impressive stories of the Paris Olympics across any sport.

The Moroccan rider fractured three vertebrae in his neck in a fall on 14 March and only received the go-ahead to ride in the Olympic dressage on 19 July, one week before he travelled to the Games.

“I’ve never cried because of happiness and it sounds a bit dramatic, but when they told me I could come here, I really cried because I was so happy and I had hoped so much to ride at the Olympics again. I’m really counting my blessings,” he said after piloting Stal 104 BV’s All At Once to a respectable score of 68.696% in the grand prix yesterday (31 July).

Yessin suffered his injury in a fall from a young horse and was confined to bed for two months after the accident.

“I was not allowed to do anything, not allowed to move, because they were complicated fractures and there was a high risk I’d be paralysed,” he explained.

“When you saw the scans and X-rays, you thought, ‘How is it possible that he can walk?’ I could feel my legs, but the risk to operate was too high because they didn’t know if I’d still be able to feel my legs afterwards.

“It was really, really scary. There was a 95% chance I wouldn’t make it to the Games, but there was a really small chance that I would. The doctors said the only thing they could do was to scan me on 19 July and see then if they could give me the green light to go.”

Having started riding on 8 July and had his scan on 19 July, Yessin was given the go-ahead to attend the Games, his third as a rider.

While Yessin was off, Dutch young rider Lara van Nek kept All At Once in training. She has won nine medals in under-21 dressage European Championships.

“She’s the daughter of my owner and a student of mine – I’ve trained her since she was six and she’s 19 now. She’s a really good rider,” he said.

Yessin Rahmouni, who was born and is still based in the Netherlands, said he has limited movement in his neck, but no pain when riding.

“There is some pain if I walk or drive a car, because then I’m moving it more, but if I stay straight it’s fine, so it’s the perfect position to ride – just looking straight forward,” he said.

He added that he already felt like a winner making it to the Games, but this was compounded when he was asked to the flag bearer for Morocco at the opening ceremony.

“So that felt like a medal,” he said. “For me to bear the flag, I could not do more than this at this moment. If I want to have an actual medal, I have to be better.”

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