How Kate Foster Re-Learned Gymnastics On One Leg

Sixteen-year-old Kate Foster mounts the balance beam at a small Illinois gymnastics competition. Wearing a red and black leotard, she raises her arms above her head and steadies herself on the narrow beam as her teammates and judges look on. In the background, you can hear an instrumental version of "Defying Gravity," which seems to be playing as much for Foster as for the gymnast dancing to the track on the floor exercise. After about a minute of flipping, turning, and leaping across the beam, Foster pauses. A coach steps in to spot. Raising her arms above her head, Foster swings her leg and flips backward off the beam. She lands, and salutes the judges. The gym erupts in cheers and Foster, looking very pleased with herself, hugs her coach. The video of Foster's beam routine, uploaded by her father to Facebook after the January competition, went viral within days of being posted, and has since racked up nearly five million views.

The teenager flipped and leapt and turned across the beam with a prosthetic leg. Foster lost her leg to cancer in 2011, right after her twelfth birthday. She started gymnastics at age seven, and was training around 20 hours a week when she was diagnosed with leukemia and underwent chemotherapy to prepare her for a bone marrow transplant. But before the procedure, her left leg had become dangerously infected. The doctors informed the gymnast and her family that they would need to amputate the limb. When Foster learned her infection-ridden leg had to be amputated, she initially refused. But the doctors persuaded Foster and her family that this was the only way to proceed with the transplant. Surgeons removed her left leg, from the mid-thigh down. The morning after, Foster's coach reached out to her. Denise Cooper, Foster's coach, choked up several times as she recalled the ordeal. Cooper explained how close the team was and described telling the athletes, first about Foster's diagnosis, and then about the amputation, as the hardest thing she ever had to do. Cooper's conversation with Foster after the amputation was a pivotal moment for the gymnast.

The loss of the limb had affected all of Foster's routines, even simple skills on bars that rely primarily on upper-body strength. Foster had been left-footed as a gymnast and had to relearn all of her skills favoring the other side. She has also limited her work to just the bars and beam (she used to compete on floor exercises and vault as well), part to accommodate a demanding course load, but primarily to protect her right leg from overuse. There are other challenges beyond the physical ones. Cooper explained that Foster has to warm up apart from the rest of her team since they set the balance beam a little lower for her and insert an extra thick mat to help keep her safe. This means she is usually the last person on her team to compete. Despite these struggles, Foster managed to regain many of her skills and climb two levels since returning to the sport. Before she was diagnosed with leukemia, she had been a Level 5 gymnast. And Cooper said that the gymnast has managed to find the humor in the situation. When they discovered that the scoop part of her prosthetic leg was chipping the low bar, Cooper suggested wrapping sports tape—the same kind that gymnasts wrap around their ankles and wrists to take care of injuries. Foster was taken aback by her sudden virality. But what's remarkable to Cooper about the video is slightly more mundane. She just wants to keep going.

48.975 on bars for OSU. Not helping. 49.275 for Georgia on vault. Winston - UB - gigantic Ray as always - a tight handstand in there - beautiful pak - small hop in place on DLO. Caquatto - Ub - just a touch close on Ray - vertical on that hs, very precise on those - step back on DLO. Scaman - UB - strong jaeger - nice bail, very tight body position and vertical - a borderline final hs - step back on dismount. Yikes, Arkansas counting a 9.6 on vault. This is slipping away quickly. Big advantage to Nebraska. Kmieciak hitting obviously - staggered stick on tuck full - scores going massive, Oklahoma pulling away in the first rotation as expected. I only saw this dismount on McMurtry's bars. I LOVE her routine this way. Oh god, and now Michigan is going to start, Wofford excellent on jaeger obviously - perfect legs on bail - sticks dismount - great.

Waiting on scores for Florida on bars and Minnesota on vault. And obviously for Alabama's regional as well. LSU and Georgia with enough of a lead that it will just take 5 for 6 hits the rest of the way to advance. Another 9.950 for Wofford. What does a girl have to do, Arkansas just absolutely fell apart on vault. VAULT. 48.375. Basically Nebraska will just have to vaguely hit the remaining three events. Minnesota bars judges had a very "and none for Florida, bye" rotation. Minnesota 49.175 on vault is higher than Florida's bars score. Arkansas currently behind Kent State. WE HAVE SCORES IN ALABAMA. WE HAVE SCORES IN ALABAMA. Kentucky goes 49.125 on floor. Boise State is down to the 48s on both vault and floor. Need a huge bars number now. Cal 48.900 on beam is behind Kentucky, but it's also beam. Stanford floor. Michigan beam. Hee hee. Your last name is Butts.