It looks like injuries are chasing Florida Gators gymnast Ellie Lazzari. She had to sit out the entire 2022 season because of a ruptured Achilles tendon while competing against Georgia. Overcoming that, Lazzari was set to make her comeback in the Lonestar State with style with the NCAA Gymnastics Championship. However, the Gators star might be looking at another disaster.

On the night when it looked like falls and tumbles became the common thing for the participating gymnasts in the night session of the 2024 NCAA event, Lazzari wasn’t too different either. She was scheduled to take on both the bars and her natural forte, the balance beams. However, the night saw her struggling in both. First, on the bars, Lazzari took a blow after landing on her knees while dismounting, resulting in a 9.1625.

Then a post on X, shared the news soon after of Ellie taking another fall on the beam, where she took another injury to her knees. “Lazzari’s second fall of the day. Whacked her knee on the way down on her BB series.“, reveals the post by GymCastic.

Ellie was once hailed as the next superstar, who would throttle the Florida Gators to the national headlines. Although she has been fighting injuries for a long time, her return to action was only a matter of time. But many didn’t expect it to go down in the way it did. However, her teammates were up for the challenge as Leanne Wong, Anya Pilgrim, and Skylar Draser came up with sensational performances of their own on the bars to make sure the Gators didn’t suffer too much from Lazzari’s wobbly steps. And yet, considering the ordeal Ellie has gone through over the last couple of years, her return wasn’t expected to be a smooth rider either.

Can Lazzari bounce back again in the NCAA Gymnastics Championship?

In 2021, on her debut, Ellie won All-American and All-SEC first-team honors for her performance on the balance beam. In her first-ever national meet, Lazzari rose to the occasion in a spectacular fashion and became a driving force in the Gators’ second-place finish in the NCAA Gymnastics Championship. While fans were eager to see what fate had in store for the budding star, it was the very next year that put a halt on her stellar rise to fame thanks to the Achilles injury in Athens. The worst part was that the injury was incurred during the floor exercise warm-up and not even while competing. However, despite a subsequent surgery, Ellie has been training hard for months.

“I just really built that confidence and strength, mentally and physically, and it just kind of clicked“, mentioned the gymnast when talking about her return to the action. “It’s been an interesting journey for sure“, confessed the star later. Now, with the Gators making it yet another NCAA final, it remains to be seen if Ellie can bounce back from the adversity and reclaim her throne on the Florida campus in the days to come.