Another NCAA swimming star has undergone surgery to repair a torn labrum after the end of the collegiate season. On March 22, Stanford senior Allie Raab underwent a very similar surgery to NCAA mile champion Paige McKenna, right after the conclusion of the NCAA Championships.
Raab learned that she had a torn labrum in October and swam through most of the season with the injury. She says that she managed the pain with a cortisone injection (that didn’t help) and two Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections that gave her enough relief from pain to continue racing and training.
During the surgery, doctors repaired Raab’s torn labrum, which is a ring of cartilage around the joint of the hip. They also shaved down the top of her femur to fix the underlying condition that caused the tear – referred to as “femoral acetabular impingement – when the bone rubs on the labrum. They also tightened the hip capsule to help stabilize the joint going forward.
Raab says she will have four weeks on crutches altogether (two more from the time of posting), and is able to be about 50% weight-bearing during that time. After that, she’ll be back in the pool to pull, with a full recovery period of 4-6 months before she can return to full activity.
Raab earned an individual Honorable Mention All-America honor in the 200 breaststroke with a 2:08.89 to finish 16th in finals (following a 2:07.86 in prelims). She also placed 26th in the 200 breast individually in 59.81.
Perhaps more crucially for Stanford, Raab swam a key role on the breaststroke leg of the Cardinal 400 medley relays. That role became even more important after Zoe Bartel’s mid-season retirement.
Though she gets better as the distance gets longer, she filled a key breaststroke gap for Stanford in the shorter distances. In the 400 medley relay, she split 59.15 to combine with Olympic medalists Regan Smith, Torri Huske, and Taylor Ruck for 3rd place; and on the 200 medley relay, she split 26.86 to support a 10th-place Cardinal finish.
This is not the first joint surgery that Raab has had during her collegiate career. In March 2020, shortly after the NCAA Championship meet was canceled by COVID-19, she underwent surgery on her shoulder – the last elective surgery conducted at that hospital before most of the country’s medical resources turned to fighting the pandemic.
Raab was a senior during the 2021-2022 collegiate season, and says that she plans to return to use her 5th year at Stanford next season. All swimmers who competed during the 2021-2022 NCAA season were given the option to take a 5th year of eligibility because of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Cardinal will have a deeper breaststroke group next year, including incoming freshman Lucy Bell (who has been 1:00.79 in the 100 already), which will either allow Raab to focus on her best race the 200, or push her to a higher level in the sprints. Either way is a win for the Cardinal.
Allie’s performances were very impressive considering her injury. I can imagine in a hip driven stroke like breaststroke, this condition could be quite painful.
Will be interesting to see if Bell focuses on the Breast given Stanford’s needs. I’d think that has been one of her off events given her Fly, Free and IM times. She hasn’t swam it near as much as she has those other events.