Somewhere on the ocean right now a shipping container full of vital athlete recovery equipment is en route from the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games in July.
A total of 350 kilograms of boxes were carefully packed onto a trailer headed to Botany before beginning a two-month journey to the United Kingdom where the supplies will be distributed across multiple Games sites for use by Australian athletes.
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Once the container arrives at its destination, senior adviser of the AIS REST Hub (Recovery, Environment, Sleep, and Travel) Steph Shell will be in charge of implementing the use of the equipment, helping the Australian team achieve peak performance.
"It'll be a lot of mileage for our team across the UK," Shell told The Canberra Times.
"We've probably taken over the most amount of equipment we've ever really taken to a Commonwealth Games.
"We sent over 45 compression devices, which is actually quite a lot, and sports will have loan of them the whole time they're there. Then we also sent 21 ice baths, 100 cold towels, and 10 eskies.
"Recovery is very important through training and competition, and using specific strategies like ice baths is really beneficial to help athletes reduce soreness, get them ready to go the next day and increase their performance in subsequent competition.
"It's also helps decrease core temperature as it will be summer over there as well, so lowering that will help get the athlete back into their recovery state."
Shell said the AIS support will be an "integral component" for athletes throughout the one-and-a-half week event, but "just one piece of the puzzle" in assisting them to perform at their best.
The AIS will also be providing guidance on ideal preparation before they even land in England.
"The two major factors for this Games is making sure the team's recovery plans are well-placed and that they have a travel preparation strategy," Shell explained.
"It's such a huge travel load, and that body clock change, we've been working closely with sports to help get them ready for that with travel education, and jetlag adaptation schedules."
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Melanie Dinjaski
Melanie Dinjaski is an experienced sports journalist at the Canberra Times with a genuine love of all sports. She's covered every code from NRL to NFL, and has experience in print, digital, podcasting, TV and video journalism, having spent time working in newsrooms at Nine, Fox Sports and Seven before moving to the capital. Melanie aims to bring Canberrans all the sports news they need to know - have a story worth sharing? Get in touch!
Melanie Dinjaski is an experienced sports journalist at the Canberra Times with a genuine love of all sports. She's covered every code from NRL to NFL, and has experience in print, digital, podcasting, TV and video journalism, having spent time working in newsrooms at Nine, Fox Sports and Seven before moving to the capital. Melanie aims to bring Canberrans all the sports news they need to know - have a story worth sharing? Get in touch!
