PROVO — The Brigham Young University women's cross country team's hopes to recapture the national championship were diminished over the weekend when one of its top runners was involved in a biking accident.
Six-time all-American Kassi Andersen broke the left side of her pelvis while cross training with her brother down the Alpine Loop of American Fork Canyon Saturday morning.
According to her mother, Kathryn Andersen, Kassi Andersen was trying to slow down to avoid a truck pulling a camper in the opposite direction but was thrown off the bike and underneath the camper.
Kassi Andersen, a graduate student, was taken by ambulance to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and examined by doctors, who recommended she be moved to University Hospital in Salt Lake City to undergo surgery.
Kathryn Andersen said the surgery today is expected to take three hours and she hopes for a full recovery in six to eight months.
"The doctor that first looked at her said because it's a clean break he anticipates that she'll be able to return to doing whatever she's doing," Kathryn Andersen said.
BYU women's cross country head coach Patrick Shane said when he first found out about the accident, he didn't think about how it would affect the team.
Shane was already preparing for Andersen's absence from competition for the first half of the season while she recovered from a broken ankle she suffered running in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Olympic trials this summer.
Andersen was cross training to stay in shape until she could start running with the team again.
"What was once an inconvenience is now, in retrospect, insignificant," Shane said of her ankle injury. "There's no way to prepare for this sort of accident. My heart goes out to her and her family."
A 5-foot-10 former Provo High track star, Andersen was expected to be the No. 1 runner for the Cougars this year, who were national champions in 2002 and finished second last year. The team's first competition is on Saturday in Provo. Her mother said Kassi Andersen initially struggled thinking about the idea of not running for a year but is a very determined and focused worker.
"She seems to be reconciled that she's going to have to change her lifestyle, and accepting the fact that she may have to do something totally new for the next half a year to a year," Kathryn Andersen said. "I think she'll do whatever it takes to stay in shape. She's a hard little worker."
Andersen redshirted her first year on BYU's cross country team before earning all-American honors her last two years. In the 2003 NCAA championships, she finished 13th overall with a time of 20:14.5.
During track season, Andersen runs the 800m, 1,500m, 3,000m and 5,000m races for the Cougars, in addition to the 3,000m steeplechase.
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