From Tiger Woods to Stephen Curry to Ronaldo, many athletes have shown that overcoming injuries was also part of their greatness.

Rafael Nadal He has played his entire career with a punishment. The problem he suffers in his left leg, known as Müller-Weiss disease, is a progressive deformity of the scaphoid, a degenerative lesion that has no cure. Treatment to stop wear only or ignore the pain threshold. Like the man from Manaco, other great athletes have sidelined injuries, threatening their careers to achieve the glory.

Stephen Curry’s Ankles

The plan was to implant a corpse’s tendon in the right ankle. Stephen Curry, Two years of repeated sprains had destroyed him, and the operation he had done last summer didn’t work. The next step was to be more aggressive and therefore more risky. In the best case, it would be a six-month vacation. The worst part is the uncertainty of not knowing if I can play basketball again, or at what level. The year was 2012, and Curry wasn’t Curry yet.

Only when opening the meat, the doctors saw that it would be enough to thoroughly clean the area. Curry doesn’t play with a corpse’s tendons, but he needs cumbersome protection to shield his ankles, a major problem for an athlete whose style requires high doses of speed and changes of direction. Despite everything, he has been a three-time NBA champion, two-time MVP and is currently playing his sixth final in eight years as leader of the Golden State Warriors.

Peyton Manning’s arm

only after the worst is over Peyton Manning He confessed to what extent the test had been reached in 2010 because of his neck problems. Manning, considered one of the best quarterbacks of all time, told the Washington Post that the operation caused nerve damage and left him without strength in his right arm. , and he barely managed to throw the ball for five yards. “I had to learn again.”

The injury cost him the entire 2011 season and his job with the Colts, the only team he played for in his 13-year career. But after more than a spare year, he resurfaced at the Denver Broncos: in 2013 he won his fifth MVP trophy, and in 2015 he won the Super Bowl. A few months later, she confessed that she still didn’t feel it in her fingers.

l US Open d Tiger Woods

Two months before the 2008 US Open, Tiger Woods He underwent surgery to clean out the cartilage in his left knee. There are two images of that tournament in our memory: his apparent running problems, which were then blamed for his hasty comeback, and his epic win on the 19th hole of the playoffs. rocco mediation, A victory that became even more memorable when ‘Tiger’ revealed the true extent of his physical problems.

Later in a press conference, Tiger Woods revealed that he had been playing for at least ten months with a torn ligament in his left knee and that two weeks before the US Open, he suffered a double stress fracture in his tibia. This will be his last win in the ‘major’ until the 2019 Masters, after a decade marked by personal problems and persistent physical problems, including four back operations.

Ronaldo’s knee

This is one of the defining moments of football in the 21st century: ronaldo The stamping Brazilian came minutes earlier against Lazio Box in the 2000 Coppa Italia final, ending his five-month absence with a knee injury. The defense retreated, as if anything else could be done against ‘O Phenomeno’. Ronaldo played, banged on the right and, in the words of his physio, nilsson petroneThe patellar tendon was blown.

The injury cost him a career spanning nearly two years of his life and a stampede that doubled as nature’s spectacles, but not poison in the box. Shortly after his return, Ronaldo led Brazil to their fifth World Cup with eight goals in seven matches, including a brace in the final against Germany. That same summer he closed his signing for Real Madrid, where he would give his last gasp of greatness, such as a Champions League hat-trick that deserved a standing ovation from Old Trafford.