Gymwoman Smith fights off painful toe injury

Nikki Smith didn't know if she could do it. She wasn't sure if she could fight through the pain.

Penn State coach Steve Shephard may have been a bit unsure as well.

"It's kind of a joke between us, because I'm always getting on her about being tougher," he said. "I always tease her that she's never going to have a baby because she doesn't have the pain tolerance."

The challenge was nonetheless presented -- Smith had to compete in the last two exercises, beam and floor, while enduring the pain of a severely cut toe.

Smith took a chunk out of her left big toe on the uneven bars when she swung from the top bar and slammed her toe against the bottom bar. The crowd couldn't see it, but streams of blood poured from her toe onto the mat.

The crowd, stunned into silence, had already experienced a whirlwind of events. The Lady Lions were not even halfway through Saturday's competition against Ohio State when Smith's injury became the second of the night. All-American Missy Leopoldus twisted her knee when she attempted a double pike on vault.

The wave of enthusiasm the team had been riding descended the instant Smith dismounted the bars, scrunched her face in agony and closed her eyes on a pool of tears.

But Smith couldn't call it quits just yet. Already a woman short, Penn State needed her in the next two rotations.

Standing with her hands on her hips, Smith limped from the bars to the beam with a flip flop on her right foot and her left toe lifted rigidly from the floor. Her eyes, downcast and glossy with tears, reminded the Rec Hall crowd that gymnasts, at times, must endure pain.

Shephard, no stranger to this, took Smith aside.

"I said once you get up there, you're not going to feel a thing," Shephard said. "That's what adrenaline is for. Flight or fight. You're not going to run away. You're going to fight."

Smith nodded her head, allowed a few more tears to run down her face and took to the beam.

She fell once and scored a 9.1. Surprisingly, Smith said the fall was not a result of her injured toe.

"I wasn't nervous," she said after the competition. "I was just wondering if it was going to hurt so bad that I wouldn't be able to finish."

To the audience it may have looked like it hurt so bad -- as soon as she saluted the judges, her face became flushed and tears streamed down her face.

There was just one last hurdle for Smith -- the floor exercise -- and her teammate, junior Janae Whittaker, told her the night would soon be over.

"I told her that she was going to be fine, and that she was only going to need stitches," she said. "I told her that (her toe) wasn't something she was going to make worse."

With that, Smith performed freely, as if there was no bandage or pain. She left the center of the floor, pumping her fist, her ponytail bobbing -- showing everyone she had the fight.