LONDON (AP) — A field hockey player who helped Britain win a gold medal at the Rio Olympics announced her retirement on Thursday after failing to recover from head trauma caused by hitting a brick wall hard while laughing at a joke.
Alex Danson-Bennett said her head injury had been life-changing “in terms of my perspective and things that have happened within my family.”
“It’s difficult because this has been my life,” the 34-year-old Danson-Bennett said.
A key player for Britain when the team won Olympic gold in 2016, she was on holiday in Kenya with her now-husband, Alex, when she threw her head back to laugh at his joke and hit her head against a brick wall.