Olympic athlete amputates finger to compete in 2024 Paris Olympics

(LONDON) — An Olympic athlete has had his finger amputated after sustaining an injury so he can compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Just two weeks ago, Matthew Dawson, a 30-year-old Australian hockey player, suffered a serious fracture to his right hand during a team training session in Perth, Australia. After consulting with doctors, he was told that the injury would take months to recover from and that he would miss out on his chance to compete in his third Olympic Games.

But instead of opting for a long recovery, Dawson made a decision that would shock his teammates and has already made headlines around the world. He decided to amputate his finger so he could compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“There was a bit of shock within the team,” Dawson’s teammate, Aran Zalewski, said in an interview in Paris ahead of Friday night’s opening ceremony. “We didn’t really know what to think. And then we heard that he had gone to the hospital and cut off his finger, which was quite interesting because I know sometimes people would give an arm and a leg and even a little bit of a finger to be here.”

“When you’ve made choices and sacrifices all your life to get to the highest level, I think it was an easy decision for him,” Zalewski continued. “We support him completely. We played a game (Monday) and he seems completely fine. It’s great to see his finger is fine and he can play the whole tournament with us.”

Dawson, who underwent surgery on his right hip a month after the 2018 Commonwealth Games, has had a long list of injuries throughout his career, including a fractured orbital bone in a training accident in February 2018, which forced him to miss the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia the following month.

Dawson started playing hockey when he was 8 years old, after his sister stopped playing netball and his parents signed her up for the local hockey team.

“As little brothers do, over the next few years I would tag along with my sister and watch her play hockey,” Dawson explained in a November 2018 interview.

Dawson is now set to make three Olympic appearances after competing in 2016 and 2020, where he won a silver medal with his team after losing to Belgium on penalties. He is also a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist in 2018 and 2022 and has two appearances at the Hockey World Cup to his name, finishing third with his team in 2018 and fourth in 2023.

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