When Canada's snowboarding team wows the crowd at Cypress Bowl at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next year, they'll have not only the eyes of the world on them.
Among the fans and families wild with excitement at their breath-taking manoeuvres, there'll be an intently-focused team whose only mission is safeguarding the athletes' mental and physical well-being.
One of those will be sport medicine physician Connie Lebrun. Lebrun, an Olympian in volleyball in 1976 and veteran of five Olympic Games as a member of Canada's medical team ('96, '00, '04, '06, '08), is the Canadian snowboard team's physician and medical director. As such she's a key member of the team's integrated support team (IST), a conglomerate of professionals comprising coaches, a physician, physiotherapists, a sport nutritionist, an exercise physiologist, a strength and conditioning coach, a biomechanist and a sport psychologist. While that may seem a hefty human security blanket for one team, "It's pretty much the way sport is going," says Lebrun. "The care of the high performance athlete is getting better and better. "
"I was first assigned to the team for the 2006 Olympics in Torino when I was part of Canada's core medical team," explains Lebrun. Not every sport has the resources to bring its own physician or other health personnel to every competition, so members of the country's core team are assigned to different teams for the Games. Lebrun, who was assigned to field hockey, tennis and archery among others, in Beijing last year, says, "This time Canada Snowboard requested me and supported my application."
She's been with the team for four years.
Lebrun is also the director of the Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic and can't be with the team all the time, but the snowboard IST members are in close contact with each other through conference calls, flurries of emails and gatherings at Whistler. "Our IST lead, an exercise physiologist who works out of the Canadian Sport Centre, Pacific in Victoria, has access to variety of testing equipment, and a satellite setting at Whistler where the athletes can train solo or as part of a training camp. I do the physical exams and order any necessary tests, and we all meet as a group about the athletes."
With the Games now scant months away, Lebrun attended a Team Orientation and Preparation Seminar (TOPS) in Vancouver in September - a gathering of 177 support personnel, from chefs de mission and the health and science support team (HST) to communications and media teams, transportation and athlete services officers. "We heard presentations by the Canadian Olympic Committee about their role; we visited the Olympic village and some of the competition venues," says Lebrun, adding that TOPS are fixtures of every Olympic Games and grounded in the extensive experience of the COC and its know-how of countless Games.
The team-building is vital, because, says Lebrun, "When you hit the ground running it's a pretty stressful environment. There were wellness sessions for us too and it's important to establish support systems and networks so you know the faces and how things work, the chain of command for every instance, and emergency preparedness.
"We work through scenarios so we understand the logistics and we know who to call, what resources to use when and how, such as how to evacuate an injured athlete to hospital and by what means. Nothing is left to chance."
At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, when a bomb exploded in Centennial Park, Lebrun said everyone's TOPS training meant Canadian Games personnel knew exactly what to do. "We had already thought through the scenario in detail in advance, and acted accordingly," says Lebrun.
From an H1N1 outbreak, to how to respond to a positive doping test, to what if a busload of athletes goes missing en route to Whistler or there's a major rock slide, Lebrun says the team is well-prepared.
The biggest role of all for the HST will be shielding the athletes from distraction - a major concern when competing in one's home country, she emphasizes. "The athletes have told us that they want us to be there, be positive, be available, be effective - and be unobtrusive," she says, noting that friends and families will be well taken care of by a team focused solely on ensuring they enjoy the competitions without distracting the athletes' attention from their task.
Lebrun says the rewards of working with the Olympic movement are incredible. "I have the opportunity to get to know people from all parts of the country and work in a multi-disciplinary environment, and there are many opportunities to interact with professionals with different types of expertise.
"It's also exciting to see if our four years of work with these athletes pays off. Stay tuned!"
Dr. Lebrun is a member of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation and has research interests in the area of athlete health. She is also the director of the Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic at the University of Alberta which is affiliated with the faculty.