Skater Pulls Off Incredible Feat —With Broken Foot

Despite one of them having a broken foot, Danny O'Shea and Ellie Kam of Team USA finished in seventh place last Thursday in the pairs free skate competition at the world figure skating championships in Boston. That was enough to ensure the United States will get at least two pairs spots at the 2026 Olympics, USA Today reports, as well as three spots at next year's world championships—and a chance for a third spot at the Olympics, which the US has not seen in pairs competition in decades. And O'Shea did it all despite the fact that five days prior he'd broken a bone in his foot, CBS News reports.

He injured his foot during training on March 22 before arriving at the championships, but, with the approval of US Figure Skating, he underwent 24 hours of intense medical care including "a numbing injection, which is used in other professional sports like football, for athletes with similar injuries," his coach says. Two days later, USFS cleared him to compete after he finished a full final training program skate, and he continued the numbing injections and an icing/compression routine throughout the competition. Only after their seventh-place finish did formal imaging show O'Shea had a bad break of his fifth metatarsal for which he had surgery this week. (More figure skating stories.)