Athletes are super-human. But, as Niall Elliott reminds me, they are entirely fallible too. They get sick. They feel fatigued. They flake out. The past four years, for most Olympians, has been spent converting their bodies and minds into shrines of well-being but the most microscopic of germs can be as formidable as their toughest opponent. Help, fortunately, will be ever close at hand.
Once a GP in Dundee, Elliott has the mother of all practices to oversee over the month ahead. The chief medical officer for the British team in Rio, his remit is to keep competitors and support staff in rude health as well as dealing with emergencies, large and small.
“There is pressure to deliver at the Games, so that the athletes feel everything‘s been looked at,” he reveals. “I’ve got to have recruited the right team, an experienced team that knows what they’re getting into. The quirkiness of a Games is that you have a limit on the amount of personnel you can bring in, so track and field will bring two doctors. But I have ultimate responsibility to make sure the scaffolding the British Olympic Association provide is as robust as possible.”
And the mosquito netting. Polluted water in Brazil has been on the global agenda for years. Sanitation in the Olympic Village merely for days since the Australian team declared their accommodation inhabitable. The quality of the food will inevitably trouble Twitter in the days ahead. Yet one issue has dominated discussions over these Games for the past six months and more and it falls squarely into Elliott’s domain.
“Because we’ve a split between the camp in Belo Horizonte and Rio, we already had looked at things like dengue fever, yellow fever and malaria,” he confirms. “And therefore, when the Zika story started to develop, it wasn’t unexpected. But it then allowed us to focus more and we’ve had close workings with the chief medical officers, the health departments and the World Health Organisation.
“That’s not just because of Zika. But we've had advice on the best repellent to use. We spoke to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine because just because it claims something on the tin, it doesn’t mean it works.”
The message despatched has that there is no significant cause for alarm. Still, it has not stopped the likes of Rory McIlroy retreating to that Zika hot spot known as Florida. Each to their own. It is, in reality, well down the list of concerns.
“There’s been a lot of issues to do with Brazil, starting with the impact of the long travel from the UK,” Elliott outlines. "So British Cycling, for example, will have looked at this to see who travels well, who doesn’t and how that might affect performance. They might give someone 72 hours off after they arrive. I try to work out what we can do to ensure they are as fit and well as possible when they’re ready to go.”
I first crossed paths with Elliott when we were freshers in the same halls of residence at Dundee University at the very outset of his medical journey. He was a keen skier then. It provided his entrée into the science of sport. From there, he provided the medical back-up to the ice hockey bruisers of Dundee Stars and that opened door into the Olympic realm.
The discipline has exponentially professionalised since he first got involved, he says. Go back to 2004 and the clinic in Athens was largely staffed by general practioners with a passing interest in sprained ankles and sore backs. In Rio, the depth of specialism will be profound.
They will expect the unexpected, he affirms. Care will be provided whenever and wherever required. On occasion, it might make the difference between a dream realised and an ambition shattered. Elliott’s 50-strong team will have their own performances to measure and their own Olympic ambitions to fulfil.
“We’ll try to get a little downtime,” he declares. “But it is a unique view of the sport, not one you get on TV or the stand. It’s a privilege to see the ups and downs of an athlete – we’ll see sport but in a different way.”
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