Skateboarder Mimi Knoop is tougher than you

When your job is getting air out of concrete bowls, like it is for Mimi Knoop, you can bet injuries are a fact of life. Photo by Dan Sparagna

Mimi Knoop has been wowing the world of professional skateboarding since first turning pro in 2003 and winning five women’s vert X Games medals. She has also championed women in some of skateboarding’s toughest arenas—cofounding Hoopla Skateboards and The Alliance, a nonprofit that helped bring about equal-size prize purses for men and women at the X Games. She’s a graphic designer (designing logos for Vans and Hoopla skateboards) and a talented fine artist (her paintings are exhibited in art shows throughout Los Angeles). To put it plainly, Knoop is a hard charging skateboarder and accomplished businesswomen who, a decade after debuting on the scene, is still turning heads—even after recently enduring one of the worst injuries of her career.

Mimi Koop is an accomplished skateboarder, artist, and advocate of women's action sports. She's also tougher than you. Photo credit: Ricoy Photo

Mimi Knoop is an accomplished skateboarder, artist, and advocate of women’s action sports. She’s also tougher than you. Photo by Ricoy Photo

As a skateboarder, bumps and bruises are part of the equation, and Knoop has long lost track of most of hers. But big injuries are an unfortunate happenstance, too, with a major one striking Knoop last December. “I was skating the Vans Combi pool, (which is 12 feet deep) and fell in the corner, on my foot,” she explains in an interview with GrindTV. “My foot folded inward on itself, and I thought I broke my ankle. It immediately swelled and bruised.”

It may not look bad in the photos, but Mimi Knoop’s torn ankle ligament kept her off her skateboard for nearly a year. Photo by Mimi Knoop

An MRI revealed that she tore the inside ligament of her right ankle. “Only one percent of people with this injury do not break the bone because it is the strongest ligament in our ankle. I was in the one percentile—lucky me. They told me that recovery would’ve been much easier if my bone had broken. To top it off, I also suffered nerve damage. I couldn’t walk on uneven surfaces, like sand, for months. I also couldn’t stretch without getting zapped (from the nerve damage).”

According to Knoop, while the ligament did eventually heal, the nerve damage ended up being the most problematic component of her injury. “It takes the body an extremely long time to heal nerves—only a millimeter a year,” she says.

Knoop’s best therapy, it turned out, was simply keeping still. “Injuries will happen; it’s the reality of being an athlete,” she says. “It’s important to approach injuries with patience and figure out what your treatment options are. You don’t want to rush it because it’s easier to heal right the first time than to deal with a chronic injury that never goes away.”

Mimi Knoop's ankle in one of many therapy sessions. Photo by Mimi Knoop

Mimi Knoop’s ankle during one of many therapy sessions. Photo by Mimi Knoop

For Knoop, patience paid off. In May, she stepped back on her board one week before X Games Barcelona to get ready for the women’s park event, where she took fourth place. “Every once and in a while I still get ‘zapped’ by the nerve in my foot,” she says. “But it is mostly healed and back to normal.”