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Fitness First with Sale Sharks - week 7

3/ 9/2008

STEVE Walsh has helped to steer many rugby players through sports’ injuries and continue their careers unimpeded. However that’s not the case in all sports. Here, Walsh reflects on the end of one hockey player’s Olympic dream ...

"During my stint with Harlequins, Helen Grant came to work at the club.

I didn’t know at the time that she was a world class, high-scoring hockey player with England and Great Britain, but she had received a brutal career-threatening knee injury during the summer tour.

By chance, we ended up training together.

One thing I quickly noticed was that she had an ability to train hard and an inner drive to succeed.

Because of her international pedigree, she had been given until Christmas to prove her fitness, once proven she would be welcomed back into the inner circle, for the Great Britain squad preparing for the Beijing Olympics.

To help attain her goal she had taken a part-time job at Harlequins rugby club, which actually entailed organising Dean Richards.

She regularly had to commute to Bisham Abbey and Bath University to train. Hockey is not a full-time professional sport, and any money earned from the sport is minuscule compared to rugby.

I was impressed by her professional attitude and commitment to her sport.

With the club’s knowledge, I embarked on developing a conditioning program designed to strengthen and rehabilitate her knee to a level that would help her attain her Olympic dream.

As Christmas approached I was quietly confident that Helen was going to make a full recovery. In the gym she was making great progress, in fact on several occasions she made David Strettle look like a girl.

In the sport of rugby we regularly work with players who have chronic joint problems, these athletes can still play to a very high standard, however, they can not always consistently train to the highest level.

They are players who need to be managed, and Helen was such a player.

Christmas came and Helen was invited back into the GB training squad.

All was going well, the knee was feeling good, and she had completed a gruelling fitness test at Bisham Abbey. Consequently she had been selected to play in a couple of warm-up games.

What I didn’t know was that the games were back-to-back.

She played the first game and, like most athletes in her position, her knee then needed a couple of days of rest before working it again.

She didn’t get that luxury. The knee swelled up after the game, and she was unable to play the next day. The dream was over.

I couldn’t believe that a sport would treat a proven performer in such a manner.

Apparently it was down to the head coach. He had told Helen that unless she could physically do everything she would not be considered. He had no concept of how to manage athletes who could still perform but needed looking after. During the Olympics the same coach blasted his GB team for not getting through to the semi-finals. I think it is now time for someone to scrutinise his performance.

THE opinions expressed in this column are those of Steve Walsh and do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper or its editor.