In The Challenge: All Stars 2 season, a few competitors struggled with injuries during the competition, although Janelle Casanave was hiding a serious one from castmates, including her teammate.
She recently revealed more details about the injury, which came up during an All Stars 2 episode, and nearly led to issues for her and her teammate, Darrell Taylor.
This report will contain spoilers through Episode 9 of The Challenge: All Stars 2, including elimination results and some of the names of finalists.
Janelle revealed back injury during All Stars 2
It wasn’t until All Stars 2, Episode 9, that Janelle Casanave revealed she was in severe pain, as she’d been doing her best to mask that she had a back injury plaguing her.
She revealed during the episode that she’d suffered a serious back injury in 2014, and it took until about 2020 for her to get better. However, her back began hurting her again during the All Stars 2 events, and she wasn’t sure she could keep going in the season.
“I literally have been in so much pain, like every single day. I hardly can sleep because I’m in so much pain,” she admitted privately to Brad Fiorenza.
Janelle gritted through the pain for her and Darrell to compete in Episode 9’s daily challenge and not finish in last place. However, she’d later reveal her injury situation to Darrell and said she was worried it could impact her job. Darrell became frustrated and said she should just quit then.
However, Janelle said she wouldn’t give up after getting this far in the game. She and Darrell were the voting cast members’ pick to go into elimination against Brad Fiorenza and Jodi Weatherton. They’d end up smashing through the Smash House elimination event and defeating Team Brodi by two pounds to win.
That punched a ticket for Darrell and Janelle into TJ Lavin’s final in Cancun, but Janelle still had that back injury to worry about as Episode 10 approaches on Thursday, January 13.
Janelle reveals more about All Stars 2 back injury
In an Instagram Story update, Janelle shared several video clips about the brutal back injury she suffered during one of the All Stars 2 daily challenges.
“Long story short, during the cenote challenge where we had to jump in from like three stories and go and solve those puzzles, I actually herniated T11-T12 on my thoracic spine,” she shared, adding, “which is basically your mid-back. It’s like a really rare area to injure.”
She went on to say the original injury she had was to her lumbar spine, and she suffered that during a workout years ago, but that’s completely healed now. However, her All Stars 2 injury she suffered kept her in “pain every day” after it happened.
“I did my best to keep it to myself because obviously, I didn’t want to be a target,” Janelle said.
Janelle also explained that she went to the emergency room after that event while filming the show in Cancun. She said she received a steroid injection, and they gave her different muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory drugs. They also took an X-ray which didn’t show any issues, but they couldn’t do an MRI at that time, which would reveal other problems.
“In conclusion, I’m doing really good. I’m expected to make a full recovery. I’m feeling great. I’m back to my normal workout. But if you’ve ever had a back injury, you know exactly what I’m going through. Especially a herniated disc,” Janelle shared.
“I’m just glad that I’m going to be able to recover quickly from this compared to when I had injured my lower back. Anyways, this is the answer, and I hope you guys are enjoying The Challenge, and Yay, we made it to the final!” Janelle closed with.
In addition to Janelle, castmate Brad Fiorenza revealed an injury he suffered during the same daily challenge. Brad didn’t go home due to his injury. However, their castmate Kendal Sheppard did, after getting hurt during the cenote event and mentioning difficulty breathing later with a displaced rib. A visit to the ER ended up ruling her out for the rest of the season.
The Challenge: All Stars 2 episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.