Road to Recovery in Orillia

Orillia Packet and Times

Five months after Portuguese Olympian Francis Obikwelu tore his quad, it still hadn’t begun to heal.

Realizing the more time passed, the less likely it was he would be able to run again, the 34-year-old world-class sprinter phoned his longtime friend, Orillia-based chiropractor Larry Bell.

“I don’t go out of my way for everyone,” said Bell, who admitted he was leery about Obikwelu’s chances of recovery, given how long it had been.

Nonetheless, Bell got in touch with Dr. Anthony Galea of the Institute for Sports Medicine, a pioneer of cutting-edge muscle-reconstruction methods, and, two weeks ago, Obikwelu arrived in Toronto, where he received a plasma injection into the four-centimetre rip in his quad.

“If we didn’t get this resolved, that would be the end of his career,” Bell said.

Obikwelu, who had been preparing for his fifth Olympic Games in London when he limped off the track during a meet in Lisbon 10 metres into a 100-metre race, had tried plasma treatment in Portugal, but without any luck.

“This was so large that they needed to put fat with it to emulsify it and keep it in place so it didn’t leak away,” Bell said of where the Portuguese doctor’s attempt fell short.

With rehabilitation treatment from Bell and his team of chiropractors, kinesiologists, physiotherapists and massage therapists at Back to Function on Colborne Street, it looks like Galea’s injection is going to stick.

“It still has to be strengthened,” Bell said of the new muscle formed where the tear in Obikwelu’s quad had been.

“We have to be very strict in how much we give him to do and in what order,” he said.

Obikwelu, who anticipates making a comeback in the 2013 outdoor track season, said he trusts Bell 100%.

The pair first met at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where Bell had been a member of the medical support staff. At the time, Obikwelu, who was only 16, was competing for his native Nigeria, where he holds the national record — 19.84 seconds — in the 200-metre dash.

After undergoing surgery following the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Obikwelu flew to Canada in 2002 to receive treatment from his friend.

“An injury cannot stop me,” said the determined sprinter, who, two years later, set the 9.86-second 100-metre European record in a second-place finish at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

“I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again,” said Obikwelu, who has no plans of slowing down any time soon.

He flies back to Lisbon Sunday.

Photo:
World-class sprinter Francis Obikwelu works out under the watchful eye of kinesiologist Carley McCutcheon at Back to Function on Colborne Street. Obikwelu, who holds the European record in the 100 metres, was in Orillia to get treatment from chiropractor Larry Bell after he tore his quad in the summer