An athletic therapist from Steinbach has been named to the core medical team for Canada's Olympic team in Rio this summer. Dave Blatz, who owns Eastman Therapy Centre, has been part of the medical team at two previous Olympics as well as for previous Commonwealth Games and other world sporting events. He says the role of the medical team is to help keep Canadian athletes in top condition for their events. And how to you go about getting named to the medical team?

"A lot of it comes through networking, luck and hard work. You put in a lot of dedicated hours working with different national teams. I'm working still as the head therapist with Team Canada Baseball and was just recently named the medical director for the Canadian men's national soccer team. You meet a lot of people along the way, a lot of doctors, a lot of therapists and a lot of different representatives from national sports federations so there is a networking component. But you still have to have the hands on skills and the knowledge to assist athletes when they do get injured and get them to return to play sooner than later."

Blatz notes he will also have an administrative role with the medical team this year which will help him get closer to his goal of one day being the chief therapist for Canada at an Olympics.

"This time, we'll be doing some other things such as meeting with the International Olympic Committee, working with different seminars and workshops and those types of things. It's something you eventually want to strive for to be the chief therapist at a major games in the future. I'd love to have the opportunity to either work at a Winter Olympic or Summer Olympic event in that capacity."

He adds, being part of the medical team is a lot of fun but also allows him to constantly learn new techniques from others which he can bring back to his clinic in Steinbach.

"Every time that I go away on any sort of event, I come back with a new skill set. You're always learning. You're learning from chiropractors and physiotherapists and osteopaths and massage therapists and you're also talking to therapists from other countries and seeing what they're doing. You can always bring that back to your own clinic so you can actually use that treatment on your MPI patients, your Workers Compensation patients and your regular patients who come through the clinic door."