Local myotherapist shares Olympic journey

LOCAL myotherapist Toby Glennon has recently returned home after enjoying a front row seat at the Paris Olympic Games.

“One of the coolest things that you see is when the athletes [return to the Olympic Village] after having success or winning a medal,” he said.

“Everyone that’s in the common space will get called into a circle and the athlete that comes back with the medal will do a lap of the circle and get a high five off everyone and get an ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’.

“It’s the emotions from the athletes that you see behind the scenes – that’s the stuff that you remember.”

Leading a team of seven soft tissue therapists, the Torquay-based myotherapist travelled to Paris alongside the Australian Sports Medicine Team.

There, he lived in the Olympic Village with the rest of the Australian team and spent most of his time working with the rugby, hockey, water polo and basketball teams, helping to keep them in top shape for the competition.

For Glennon, who has also worked with tennis players during the Australian Open, the trip marks his second Olympic Games – the first being Tokyo in 2021 – and the culmination of a more than 15-year journey to be able to work with the country’s top-level athletes.

“I’ll definitely look back at [Paris] and Tokyo as career highlights,” Glennon said.

“You couldn’t pay to have that opportunity.”

The experience has seen him rub shoulders with some of Australia’s most prominent sports stars, gain exposure to the country’s top-tier medical professionals, play what he calls a “tiny part” in the Australian team’s most successful Games and even travel down the River Seine as part of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

“On the boat was a mix of staff from different sports and different areas of the Australian team and then all different sorts of athletes from golf, tennis, boxing.

“The two flag bearers were hockey and canoe.

“That was a bit of a unique experience going down the Seine River, getting drenched in our formal clothing – that was something to remember, for sure.”

But in a trip full of memorable moments, he points to watching the women’s water polo team win their semi-final battle against the USA as a key highlight.

“We worked closely with that team throughout the games,” Glennon said.

“Basically, the way it works is if you win that game, you’re guaranteed a silver medal. If you lose that game, you’ve then got to play for a bronze.

“[The game] went to a shootout and they ended up getting through. They were all in tears and that with happiness because they’d just got through to the gold medal match.

“[It] was a huge result for them.”

And what of the Olympic Village’s now-infamous environmentally-friendly cardboard beds, which made their debut at the Tokyo Games? Glennon said don’t believe the hype.

“Everyone likes their own bed, obviously. But for pop-up accommodation, those beds are fine.

“If they were no good, they wouldn’t have had them again.”