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| Home > Healthy People > April 2002 |
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April - June, 2002 |
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HealthTracks top contender for Olympic training designation
City to get nod for CODP
Bernard Griesemer, M.D. and Jim Raynor, ATC, of HealthTracks, prior to their departure to work at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. They provided sports medicine coverage and drug testing.
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The Community Olympic Development Program of the United States Olympic Committee has selected Springfield to join the program designed to enhance high-quality intermediate sports programs for talented youth.
Springfield was selected to provide programs in weightlifting and tennis. Others may be added at a later time. Those programs were selected because of the strength of the weightlifting program at St. John's HealthTracks Sports Training Center and the tennis program operated by the Park Department at Cooper Tennis Complex.
The local program, which still needs to reach a contractual agreement with the CODP before it begins, will operate under the Greater Springfield Sports Commission, according to Jodie Adams, recreation
superintendent for the Parks Department.
"This will now give our children the chance to possibly live the Olympic dream someday," she says.
The Community Olympic Development Program effort began in June 2001 with a site visit from Alicia J. McConnell, associate director of the U.S. Olympic Committee. St. John's physician Bernard Griesemer, M.D. the community chair for the project was instrumental in the effort to bring the CODP to Springfield.
"Dr. Griesemer has been a guiding force behind this effort because he has seen first-hand what the Games mean to athletes who become the best they can be by setting their sites on an Olympic goal," Adams said.
HealthTracks Sports Training Center, a part of Midwest Sports Medicine Center, is a 10,000 square-foot training facility that provides training programs for adolescents supervised by certified athletic trainers.
"Safety is our main concern," says Jim Raynor, training center director. "We try to offer young people a place to enhance their athletic abilities and truly understand how to best prepare their bodies for competition or play."
Salt Lake marked Griesemer's fourth year of providing services for the Olympics. He was a staff lead doping control officer in Atlanta in 1996 and a supervisory DCO in Nagano for the 1998 Winter Olympics. In 2000, Griesemer was appointed to the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission as a medical commission representative for the Sydney Olympic Games. This year, Griesemer was originally assigned to the Olympic Village and to the Utah Oval (fast-track speedskating), but was notified that he had received an additional assignment to cover doping control at the ice hockey venue.
Raynor has served as a doping control crew chief for Olympic athletes for several years, and this year was selected as a doping control staff member for the Games. Raynor also continues to be active in the United States Anti-Doping Agency's Doping Control Program for Olympic athletes in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.
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Take Note:
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HealthTracks will host a multi-day basketball training clinic for regional athletic directors, coaches and athletes this spring. Head training staff members from the Chicago Bulls will provide instruction. Call 417-841-5010 for registration information.
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