OTC helps athletes with recovery

Sarah Haskins Kortuem sticks her legs in an ice bath before jumping into a hot tub. Then she lounges inside a sauna or stretches her aching body across a massage table.

The Colorado Springs triathlete isn’t undergoing rehabilitation for an injury. She’s tired, and she’s trying to rejuvenate after a long day of swimming, biking and running.

Like most Olympic athletes, Kortuem feels refreshed when leaving the Olympic Training Center’s athlete recovery center, equipped with pretty much everything someone needs to generate energy, soothe pains and prepare for another strenuous workout.

A 10-person staff at the 3-year-old recovery center — open to national team members and world team participants six days a week — accommodates athletes in dry and wet saunas, a 103-degree hot plunge and a 52-degree cold plunge. Massage therapists are available as many as eight hours a day, along with yoga instructors.

There’s even nutritional snacks.

After an hour in the recovery center, Kortuem says, “My body feels better. It feels more loose. It feels more relaxed. … It can be painful. But it can be relaxing.”

U.S. Olympic Committee sports medicine clinic manager Bill Moreau said athletes enjoy the recovery center because they “minimize the cumulative damage of their exercise. We get them refurbished, so they’ll be ready to get up the next day and do the same thing.”