Three-time Olympic hammer throw champion Anita Wlodarczyk has to end her season prematurely after being caught by a car thief. As the 36-year-old reported on Instagram, she sustained an injury to her thigh during the campaign and was therefore operated on on Monday.

The Pole will miss the upcoming World Cup in Eugene/USA and the European Championship in Munich. “I will do everything to be there again next year and to give you a lot of joy,” wrote Wlodarczyk to her fans.

Just a few days ago, a man had tried to steal her car. “I single-handedly arrested the thief and handed him over to the police. Unfortunately, I paid for that with a muscle injury,” she previously wrote. At first she didn’t even realize she was injured. “The adrenaline was so strong that I didn’t even feel it.”

Wlodarczyk, who last year in Tokyo was the first athlete to win Olympic gold three times in a row in one discipline, is considering whether she will later switch from the hammer throw ring to another. “After my career I think I will fight like our champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in MMA or UFC because the offender got hurt,” Wlodarczyk wrote.

She was actually aiming for her fifth title at the World Cup, but that’s not happening now.

Wlodarczyk is already thinking about the 2024 Olympics in France and is far from wanting to end her career. “There’s a lot of work waiting for me in rehab,” she wrote, making it clear “that I want to be back on the podium in Paris in two years’ time.”