Olympic Massage

We have just completed the first two days of Track and Field (Athletics) competition in the National Stadium (”Bird’s Nest”).  We have had the most incredible two days of weather, here in Beijing!  The night before the first day of competition we had monsoon like rains that cleared the skys to show blue skys, wispy clouds, the mountain range by day that surrounds Beijing and a Full Moon over the stadium on opening night of competion!  The days have been spectacularly clear here in Beijing.  All the concerns about air quality has simply not happened.  The hazy days that we had earlier in the weeks here were no worse than what I have seen in many American cities.  So, no athletes at track and field are wear filter masks or breathing apparatus.

The first night of competition in the Olympic stadium began with the rounds of the Men’s 100 meter dash.  It ended last night as the last event of the evening in specatular fashion.  Usain Bolt of Jamaica may be the most gifted sprinter the World has ever seen!  He put on an amazing show of sheer speed and strength and controlled the entire race from beginning to end and put on a post race show for the track and field fans in attendance that rivaled Muhammad Ali in his prime. Walter Dix, a young talent who just graduated from Florida State University in Tallahassee won the Bronze medal in his first ever Olympic Games after only finishing his last NCAA championship two months ago. Congratulations to Walter Dix.  Keep your eye on this young man.  Darvis Patton, a 30 year old former TCU sprinter advanced and raced in the Finals to finish 8th with a great time.  This 30 year old raced with the best in the World when other former World Champions in the 100 meters were eliminated in semin final rounds.  Congratulations to Darvis Patton of the USA, showing that age is not always the only factor for Olympic performances.

All of the physios, massage therapists, and athletic trainers are set up in tents that surround the warm up track that is located next to the Olympic stadium.  The athletes enter the stadium through an underground tunnel that links the two.  We are able to watch all athletes prepare for their events. It is fascinating to watch athletes from around the world prepare.  You get to see some amazing kinesiology in action! One of the interesting obsevations I’ve made as I walk along the rows of massage tables in the warm up area is that I have only counted five female practitioners at the warm up track out of approximately 100 providers at any given time.  Three of the female providers, i.e. athletic trainers, massage therapists, physios are with the USA track and field team, one is with Canada and one is with Poland who I recognized as a US Chiropractor from meets in the United States.  I never realized how few female massage therapists, athletic trainers, chiropractors, and physios are working at this Olympic level at the Games.  The USOC also has one female Chiropractor assigned to the US team at our High Performance Training Center in Beijing at Normal University.

On the first night of competition the Finals of the women’s 10,000 meters was stunning!  Shalane Flanagan of the USA won the bronze medal with a terrific effort against two of the best female 10,000 meter runners on the planet. We are all very proud of her because she overcame a lot to make this happen.  The US women in the 100 meters are gearing up today, the third day of competition as well as our hurdlers and throwers.  It is quite a moment in Olympic history what is happening in Beijing.  Despite all of this I and my colleagues are putting in 19 hour work days at the moment.

The last two days for me begin at 4:30am.  We load up our sports medicine gear, massage tables, etc. and hail a taxi at 5:15am.  Yes, that’s right we have been taking a taxi to the Olympic stadium because the first buses from the Olympic Village don’t start running until 6:45am and we are staying at Beijing Normal University at our High Performance training center.  So in any event, the adventure of hailing a taxi outside our security gate with uniformed Chinese officers is always an adventure.  First, we have to determine if the taxi driver understands where we want to go and more importantly how to get there!  Not all taxi drivers in Beijing we have discovered do not read or maybe not read well.  We have cards that we wear with our Olympic credentials that have various phrases and locations written in Chinese that we simply point and show to the drivers.  Sometimes it takes hailing down several drivers before we find one willing and able to drive us to the stadium.

Once we arrive by 6am we have to trek approximately a mile pulling roller boards with all our gear including two masage tables which have to be opened and set up at the security check point for a thorough inspection by Chinese security officials. The security here at the Games is as sophisticated as I have ever seen.  There are more cameras, scanners, sniffers, armed Chinese Swat, dogs, plain clothes and more.  This could be the safest Games ever let alone the most specatular Opening Ceremonies ever!

Finally we reach the warm up track which we access through a secure underground tunnel system and have everything set up for the first arrival of athletes from the Olympic Village at 7am for the morning sessions and 4:45pm for the evening sessions.  We end our day at the stadium around midnight.  We then pack up everything except the tables which we found we can now store in the massage room provided for all athletes beneath the stadium.  We take our med kits and back packs, ride the bus back to the Olympic Village then walk through the Village and exit to a well known taxi drop off area and hail a taxi back to Beijing Normal University where we usually arrive back at 1:30am.  This schedule will repeat itself many times before the Games end.  There will be days, like today, the third day, where I actually have the morning off (and consequently my eyes are open enough to post this blog because competition starts this evening at 7pm.  I am covering team practice from 1pm to 5pm then head over to Olympic Stadium after a quick bite to eat.  I will leave Olympic stadium tonight around midnight again.  You must love what you do and love sports to work at this pace and intensity but I and my colleagues here would never trade this opportunity and privelege to work with some of America’s great athletes representing our country.

One last great moment I had was to run into Dara Torres in the Olympic Village.  Dara is the 41 year old swimmer who this morning in Beijing just won two Silver Olympic medals.  One in the finals of the 50 Free Style where she was touched out by one hundreth of a second for the Gold Medal!  Less than 30 minutes later she swam on the IM Relay where the US women finished second with a great effort!  In any event, I worked with Dara for many years since she was 18 years old and swam her college years at the University of  Florida where I was the athletic trainer massage therapist for Florida swimming.  I worked with Dara for the Seoul Korea and Barcelona Games and have stayed in touch with her over the years.  We had a great reunion in the Olympic Village with lots of laughing and joking about age and athletic performance.  She has clearly demonstrated that age may in fact be more about state of mind in athletic performance.  Congratulations to Dara Torres for inspiring us all.

The Chinese are doing an incredible job with these Games.  I am finding Beijing to be a modern, fast paced city, that is clearly making a statement to the World with their hosting of the Games.  I can’t even imagine what the Closing Ceremony show will be like.  We will all get to see soon enough.

It’s time for me to head over to the practice track.  The US Athletic team is advancing athletes through the rounds and will continue to do exciting things.

Benny Vaughn LMT, ATC

Beijing China  2008

Posted on August 17th, 2008 by Benny Vaughn
Filed under: Uncategorized