Physiotherapy for the National Ski Team

Being a full-time physiotherapist for a sports team is definitely an interesting job. It is, however, a job that varies a great deal depending on the team you're with. People often ask us what it's like to work with the National Ski Team, so we'll try to answer that here, while comparing it to work with a typical sports team.

A Physiotherapist working for any team has to fulfill the following responsibilities. The prevention of injuries, the promotion of optimal physical performance, immediate injury care, and rehabilitation post-injury. To meet these ends, the Physiotherapist will use education, manual treatment or"hands on", exercise prescription, modalities (such as ultrasound, electrical muscle stimulation, etc...), and finally communication between athletes, staff and other medical professionals to ensure the coninuity of care for the athlete. In a more general sense, the Physiotherapist must also establish a good rapport with both the athletes and the staff. Often times, this role will place the Physiotherapist somewhere in the middle, as trusting relationships with both parties are vital to success.

Concerning work with the Ski Team, the aforementioned Physiotherapy duties are in addition to those shared by all the travelling staff. Coaches, Ski Technicians, Trainers, Doctors and Physiotherapists all share the jobs of setting courses for training, timing systems, videotaping, transportation and the list goes on. Everyone works together to get the job done. Each of these other professionals also do this in addition to their other respective duties, which can make for some very long days.

The Physiotherapy support for Alpine Canada is as follows. Both the Men's and Women's Teams are divided loosely into the "Speed" and "Technical" teams. The Speed Team deals with the racers that primarily compete in Downhill or Super-G events, while the Technical Team racers compete mainly in Giant Slalom and Slalom events. Each of these four teams has one Physiotherapist assigned to them. Kevin Stoll tends to the Women's Tech team, a job that is shared by Kent Kobelka, while Harry Toor tends to the Men's Tech team. Two other Physiotherapists, Doug Linklater and Andree Lavoie work for the Men's and Women's Speed teams, respectively. Although all five Physiotherapists are separated throughout the year, we all work together closely, especially when we cross paths, such as during joint training camps or events like the Olympics or World Cup Finals. This teamwork, amongst the Physiotherapists and all other staff members, is a major aspect of working with such a large team or organization. We are both very thankful for this situation.

You can run the cursor over the highlighted points on the map to see where the season will be taking us this year. This includes all the World Cup events and the 2006 Olympics. Other non World Cup events that we may be travelling to, such as Nor-Am and Europa Cup Races, are not listed. If you wish to follow the tour through the 2005-2006 season, click on the old web-log. This "blog" will provide a glimpse into the daily lives of touring physios.

Vancouver Sports Physio