RENO, Nev. (AP) - Nearly a dozen Olympic competitors from the Reno-Tahoe area aren’t the only ones making the trip from the slopes of the Sierra to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Two doctors from South Lake Tahoe, Calif., are part of the medical team that is helping support two different U.S. ski teams at the Olympics opening Wednesday night with the men’s snowboarding slopestyle competition.
Dr. Jonathan Finnoff, director of sports medicine at Barton Health, is a team physician in Sochi for the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team, his second Winter Games in that role.
“It’s wonderful we have two physicians from here in Tahoe,” Finnoff told the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “It’s quite an honor.”
Dr. Terrence Orr, a surgeon with Tahoe Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, has been the head physician for the men’s U.S. Alpine Ski Team since 1999 and is making his fourth trip to the Olympics.
“When the physicians who have been there by the athlete’s side during their competitions are able to follow them through to the Olympics, it gives the athlete a sense of ease, because we know them, their medical background, as well as the sport,” Orr said.
Tahoe’s contingent of Olympians is led by Julia Mancuso, 29, Squaw Valley, Calif., making her fourth appearance in the Winter Games. She has won eight major championship medals, the most of any American female skier. The women’s snowboarding team has strong Tahoe representation in Jamie Anderson and Maddie Bowman of South Lake Tahoe, and Karly Shorr of Truckee.
Alpine skier Marco Sullivan of Squaw Valley is making his fourth trip to the Winter Games, and snowboarder Nate Holland of Truckee his third. David Wise of Reno, competing in the Olympic debut of the free skiing halfpipe competition, won three straight gold medals in the Winter X games last month.
Most already know the two doctors from Tahoe.
Daron Rahlves, of Truckee, Calif., a former U.S. World Cup alpine ski racer and freestyle skier, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that Orr has been a big help over the years.
“He’s helped me recover quickly from a few injuries,” Rahlves said in an email. “To have his presence at races for the U.S. Ski Team takes a lot off a racer’s and coach’s mind, especially when we are out of the country. You never know what the health care conditions or doctor skills are, so it was comforting to have Dr. Orr on hand if anything went wrong.”
Finnoff was the director of the Athlete’s Medical Clinic in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City where he helped treat dislocated shoulders, lacerations and other relatively minor injuries, many of which occurred from various ski jumping accidents.
“I’ve been traveling with these guys for more than a decade,” Finnoff said. “We have a great rapport.”
“They train really hard. They’re kind of running on that edge between being over-trained and being sick, and being undertrained.”
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