In a recent Instagram post, 4-time Reebok CrossFit Games athlete Jonne Koski announced that he’ll be withdrawing from this year’s CrossFit Open. This will be the first time in five years that Koski won’t be participating in the CrossFit Open. He’s choosing to withdraw this year due to injuries that need to be resolved.
Koski’s first Reebok CrossFit Games came in 2014 where he took home 32nd, then followed with a 9th place finish in 2015, and a 40th place finish in 2016. At the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games, Koski finished in 9th place and had possibly his best competitive year to date.
In his Koski’s Instagram post below he writes, “Unfortunately I’m not taking part in this years @crossfitgames season and I won’t be doing the Open for the first time in 5 years.”
“For the past 2 years I was trying to get my knee better by putting a lot of extra effort on warm ups, recovery, rehab and changing the movement patterns. Unfortunately the problems wouldn’t go away and even if I was able to work around the issue most of the time and maintain decent strength levels I felt that I wasn’t able to get better and reach the level that I wanted to and it frustrated me.”
“Last year after the games I had 2 knee surgeries to remove nagging scar tissue that had built up from previous injuries. MRI also showed that I had a tear in my vastus lateralis tendon which has made the recovery a bit slower but has healed well by now.”
“I was hoping that I would be able to compete the 2018 season but my recovery is still in progress and I needed to allow myself more time to heal fully before competing again.
Sucks hard to be on the sidelines but I have put my goals to 2019 and started training already. I’m confident that it will be my best year so far! Good luck to everyone competing in the #crossfitgamesopen2018, See you next year!”
Feature image from @jonnekoski Instagram page, and photo taken by @jpkaukonen.
