Chantysha Netteb (NED) Back From ACL Tear

Chantysha Netteb is a Dutch elite gymnast who will try to fight for a spot on the Olympic team. In 2012, Netteb had her international debut where she helped the Dutch team to a solid 6th place finish and won the gold on vault. In 2013, she again attended the European Championships, this time as a senior. Unfortunately, she had a fall on vault in the event finals which kept her out of medal contentions. Later that year, Netteb was selected to the World Championship team, again eyeing a spot in the vault event finals in her first worlds. She had upgraded to a new double twisting Yurchenko and her 2nd vault was a Tsukahara full. Unfortunately, Netteb was unable to show her second vault after tearing her ACL on the first vault. She has spent quite some time out of gymnastics and has had multiple knee operations since.

How did you first get started in gymnastics?
When I was little, I liked to do gymnastics things. I did things like somersaults on the couch, which frightened my mom, so she decided to put me in a gym for little children.


What's your favorite memory as a young gymnast?
My favorite memory as a young gymnast was winning the Dutch Championship on the day of my 11th birthday, because that was what I wanted as a birthday present. I knew at the beginning of the season that the Dutch Championships was scheduled on my birthday and had lived for months up to that moment. I remember that I woke up that day, my mom had a birthday present. I was very happy with it but said to her that my biggest birthday present would be winning the Dutch Championship. My mother laughed and said, I cannot give you that, that is a present only you can give to yourself.


When did you start to realize that you were good at gymnastics?
Difficult question, people around me always told me how good I was, I was not thinking about that at all. The funny thing was, that I was looking at other gymnast and thinking how good they were. I will say it in another way: when I was a youth/junior that is when I realized that I was strong enough to compete against the older and more experienced gymnasts.


What is your most proud accomplishment?
Winning the first ever gold medal for the Netherlands at a WAG European Championships, beside that I am also proud for making vault finals in my first senior year at the 2013 Worlds Championships.



Can you talk about your initial injury - what happened and how you felt afterwards?
I had torn my acl at the World Championships in 2013,  this happened during the landing. My right knee gave in, which tore my cruciate ligament.

Afterwards several things went through my mind. It was my first World Championship and it meant a lot to me. I was really happy that I had qualified myself for the Vault finals and I wanted to do better in the finals but could not finish it. I realised I was going to be out for a long time and I was very sad and heart broken.


How have you been since then?
After my recovery operation of my cruciate ligament, I took the time to recover, it went well with my knee. I started building up, but during the trainings I noticed that I had some stability problem with landing on one leg, so I decided to do another operation to fix that. I am now building up again and working with my coach on a program. It goes well.


Did you watch the World Championships in Glasgow? What were your thoughts?
I watched the World Championships. I was hoping that the Dutch gymnasts would do well and would be able to stay in the running to go to the Olympics with a team. They did very well and I am really happy that the Netherlands can send a WAG team to the Olympics.


What are your goals for this year? When may we see you in competition again?
My goals are to be fully fit and able to do a good program so that I can qualify myself for the Olympic team. I am now busy building up my program and I hope that everything will work out fine, so that I can be back soon at competitions.

HAPPY! :)Vandaag buiten mededinging meegedaan met een aangepast programma in Volendam. Na 2,5 jaar weer sprong (D 5.0)...
Posted by Chantysha Netteb on Sunday, March 20, 2016

Floor and beam can also be found on her facebook page

This weekend was Netteb's first time competing vault in 2.5 years. She competed watered down routines but was successful with all 3 - VT 5.0/14.100 (DTY), beam 4.7/12.650, and floor 4.5/12.350 (with a front 2/1!). Congratulations, Chantysha, on your comeback and best of luck as we continue through this Olympic year!