Earlier this year Tassie was selected to work as the Soft Tissue Therapist for the Australian Athletics team at her first international competition, the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon USA. What made this doubly exciting was this would be her very first overseas trip…ever! This is a brief account of her adventure….
Representing Australia.
There is nothing like a late call-up to get your nerves heightened to eleven.
Having worked with my first National team earlier in the year, at the Oceania championships in Sunny Mackay, going to World Championships in Oregon was never on my radar. Unexpectedly, on a normal Tuesday morning, I got a phone call from Athletics Australia asking if I could join their medical team in the Soft Tissue Therapist role… leaving in nine days’ time! Obviously, the answer was an enthusiastic ‘yes!’. Excitement turned to sheer terror when I realized I only had nine days to get organized. I like to be organized. What made this call up even more exciting is that this would be my first ever trip overseas.
Leaving on a Jet Plane
My first international trip was memorable, to say the least. Delayed flights, missed connections, lost bags, no phone service, and poor Wi-Fi quality. LA International airport was an absolute nightmare because of the 4th of July holidays. All the things that you don’t want to happen when travelling overseas were happening to me…all at once, on my very first overseas trip. After a night in a quaint LA hotel, I finally got on my connecting flight to Seattle (minus my bags) where the pre-comp training camp was held in preparation for the main event in Eugine.
We settled into Seattle for seventeen days and began the daily grind of fine-tuning the athletes. It’s a pretty tense time. There are lots of moving parts in getting a team of individual athletes prepared for one of the biggest events of their careers. As support staff, you really must be a jack of all trades. You never know what jobs you need to help with. Apart from your actual role as Soft Tissue Therapist, you could be helping to do all sorts of things from, helping with videoing for the biomechanist, preparing Powerade slushies, ordering meals, chauffeuring athletes and staff around or even being a shoulder to cry on when injuries occur, or tensions get too much to handle. After enough time to get a good groove on in Seattle, it was time to leave it behind and head to Eugine, Oregan for the big show and 10 days of competition.
The Big Show.
In Eugene, we were staying and working at the University, which was right next to the stadium, Hayward Field. The facilities were first-class. The Americans really know how to put on a good show. Being able to stay and work so close to the track is rare, I’m told, so I was lucky enough to watch a good amount of the competition.
The highlights from the competition included:
- Nina Kennedy winning bronze in the pole vault
- Eleanor Patterson winning gold in the high jump
- Kelsey Lee Barber winning gold in the javelin
- Lots of amazing performances from our up-and-coming athletes
- Many world records being broken by the world’s best.
The best thing about doing Soft Tissue Therapy at a World Championships
Working with Australia’s best athletes was an absolute privilege. As there are so many disciplines within the sport of athletics, you learn to deal with a lot of physical presentations from the athletes. This means that treatments were varied, and you get to learn a lot about how each individual athlete manages their body in both the preparation and competition phase of their campaign.
It was a vastly different experience to clinic life back at home, where you have set hours, work in a treatment room one on one, and use a variety of other treatment modalities. For this trip, I worked whenever, and wherever I was needed. Some days started very, very early and extended into the late evening. At our Headquarters, we set up in a big room where there were physios, doctors, managers, coaches, biomechanists, nutritionists, and athletes coming and going as they needed. The place buzzes with energy, and the energy is infectious. You definitely have to be on your toes, adaptable and aware of everything that is going on around you.
Some of my other favourite moments of the trip:
- Being a part of an American crowd watching sport. No matter the event and who was competing, they love to cheer as loud as they can. The atmosphere was electric!
- Meeting new people, including some pretty cool athletes and staff members
- Being away from Canberra winter for a month.
- Getting to go for a ride at a nearby lake in Seattle, where I had to ride on the other side of the bike path. Confusing! It’s nice to get some alone time when you’re constantly around people 24/7 on tour.
Travelling across the world for work was an amazing experience. I feel so lucky and proud to have been selected to represent Australia doing what I love, and I hope there are many more trips like this to come!
Tassie
To book an appointment with Tassie visit https://clientportal.powerdiary.com/clientportal/e6d5f79b-0488-4b4d-9c0f-ea57faac60e3/home
