Australia’s Olympic medal chances in triathlon and track and field will have two UQ-trained physiotherapists behind them in Athens.
The Masters in Physiotherapy students Mark Alexander, 31, will be in charge of triathletes while Shane Lemcke, 26, is looking after some of our track and field competitors.
As well as being a team track and field physiotherapist, Mr Lemcke will oversee our 130kg shotput star, Justin Anzlezark, who finished fourth at the world championships.
Mr Lemcke said he expected Mr Anzlezark, to throw more than 21 metres.
“With track and field being quite an explosive and powerful sport, especially in shot put, their bodies cop a fair pounding,” Mr Lemcke said.
“Therefore they’re fairly high maintenance athletes and need a fair bit of hands-on physio work for them to recover and stay injury free.”
The Queensland Sports Medicine Centre (QSMC) physiotherapist has been with the track and field team for three and a half years after working at the Queensland Academy of Sport.
Mr Alexander, a sports physiotherapist from Clayfield, said it was not a huge workload to look after our six triathletes, but it was a lot of pressure being their sole physiotherapist.
He has spent the last three years handling injury prevention and management programs for our elite triathletes, whom he is expecting medals from.
“In both men and womens, we have great medal chances. Any of the six Australian athletes on their day could take out the gold,” Mr Alexander said.
“I’m sure we’re going to get some medals.”
And he has a secret weapon to get them on the podium – a massage device he’s invented that combats upper back stiffness which can cramp triathletes while cycling.
“You see them [triathletes] on the bike and they’re very hunched over they get very stiff in their upper back which leads to a lot of lower limb and shoulder problems.”
The athletes lie on the device, which looks like a figure of eight and it improves their spinal flexibility and reduces back pain.
Mr Alexander was offered his Olympics job after working as a general physiotherapist at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, with all the Olympic athletes.
He graduated from UQ in 1995 and has been helping our triathletes since after the Sydney Games.
Both physiotherapists agreed working at the Olympics would probably be the pinnacle of their professional careers.
“There’s no greater honour I guess than to work with the Australian team,” Mr Alexander said.
For more information contact Mr Alexander (phone: 0410 691 047, email: markalex@hotmail.com) Mr Lemcke (phone: 0407 768 662, email: admin@qsmc.net.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
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