Topic: News: OTC Athletes Get New Recovery Center

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Olympic Athletes Have Place to Recover
By Eddie Pells

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Six days a week, sometimes twice a day, Bill Zadick puts his body through the rigors it takes to be a world-class wrestler.

It's a brutal regimen. Many days, Zadick has wished he had an easier time finding a hot tub, massage therapist or steam room to ease the aches and pains.

Now, relief can be found under one roof.

Not two minutes away from his dorm room at the Olympic Training Center is the new "recovery center," an old library the U.S. Olympic Committee spent about $725,000 to convert into a state-of-the-art facility with tubs both hot and cold, a steam room, sauna, a half-dozen massage tables, a workout room and men's and women's locker rooms.

The 150 to 400 athletes working out at the USOC's training center at any given time now have a single place to go when their training day is done.

"There's a lot of work and thought that goes into your rest, and if you don't do it right, you can't go hard again the next day," said Zadick, the nation's top-ranked freestyle wrestler at 145.5 pounds. "It's a huge tool to help you recover faster and better and make it through the grind the way you need to."

It might seem obvious that a small fiefdom devoted to training Olympic athletes would have this kind of facility, the likes of which are taken for granted among NFL teams and other pro and big-time college sports programs. But the reason it took so long isn't so much a reflection on the intentions of those at the training center as the state of the USOC.

In its years of turmoil, turnover and scandal _ circa 2000-2003 _ big-picture projects like the recovery center took a back seat to mere survival for many of the USOC's leaders. Buoyed by more stability and better finances over the past few years, the USOC has more time to think about projects like this.

"It's an added dimension we needed," said Bill Sands, a Ph.D. in the USOC sports science division. "We've always been pretty good at dishing it out, but we haven't always been as good at helping the athletes recover from it."

For the most part, the facilities were there _ just not always so convenient or accessible.

For instance, Zadick said before the recovery center, most athletes were allotted 20 minutes of massage therapy a week, and often getting an appointment with the single therapist in the sports medicine department was a chore.

"You could end up waiting in a pretty long line," said Steve Roush, the USOC's chief of sport performance.

Zadick and many athletes resorted to heading off campus, trying to find therapists of their own _ or going down the road to a fitness center to find a steam room. The hot tub, meanwhile, was over by the swimming pool and was available if the facility was open.

In the center _ already being used by some athletes but scheduled for an official opening later this month _ everything will be in one place, with three or four massage therapists on staff during peak hours.

The goal is to make recovery easier.

"The real plan is that this is more preventive," Roush said. "This will keep them out of the sports medicine clinic with acute injuries. It's taking a more proactive approach. Also, our foreign competitors are ahead of us on this. We decided we'd try to glean from what they've learned and get better in that area."

Roush said China and Australia are among the countries that already have sophisticated recovery centers in place.

Sands' task, meanwhile, will be to set up programs and monitor the effectiveness of the new center over a period of months and years. He wants to see whether it makes a concrete difference in performance, recovery and injury prevention.

His data will determine whether to expand the center, and whether to build similar facilities at the USOC's other two training centers in Lake Placid, N.Y., and Chula Vista, Calif.

"I didn't sign up to work at a spa," he said. "It has to have some positive effect."

It's a good point. Because, besides the $725,000 it cost to build the facility on the USOC grounds, there's a significant extra cost in keeping it staffed and maintained _ not an inconsequential commitment within a USOC budget that includes about $135 million in expenses for 2006.

Some of the decision will be based on athletes' feedback. Zadick is an early proponent.

"It's just another tool that can help everything," he said. "I think most people understand that there's a lot of hard work involved in doing what we do. It's just as important to get the most out of your rest time and recovery time. I know I'll use everything they've got."