Australian hockey star Matt Dawson made a brave sacrifice to pursue his dream and perform in the Olympic Games.
According to BBC, two weeks ago the Aussie field hockey player badly broke his right-hand digit while training with the team in Perth. After consulting, he came to know that recovering from surgery to repair would take almost ten months.
Dawson made a brave decision that shook his teammates and coach. He decided to remove the finger from the knuckle to play in his third Olympics.
The 30-year-old told the Parlez Vous Hockey podcast, “I'm definitely closer to the end of my career than the start, and, who knows, this could be my last (Olympics), and if I felt that I could still perform at my best, then that's what I was going to do. If taking the top of my finger was the price I had to pay, that's what I would do."
Moreover, the athlete at a press conference in Paris said, “We didn't really know what to think, and then we heard that he went to the hospital and chopped his finger off, which was pretty interesting because I know people would give an arm and a leg and even a little bit of finger to be here sometimes.”
He further added, “When you've spent a lifetime of choice and sacrifice to come and compete at the highest level, I think for him it was an easy decision.”
Dawson will now take the field with his team on Saturday, July 27, against Argentina, just 16 days after the injury.
