A college racing team are proving popular at cycling events for their skills in offering treatments before tournaments.

A racing team with a difference, the City College Norwich Extreme Sports Therapy team have become an instant at mountain bike events across the region.

They are accompanied by sports therapy students from the college who offer event massage treatment before and after events to riders and to other competitors.

The Extreme Sports Therapy Unit is the brainchild of Phil Sayers, sports science lecturer and Adam Williams, outdoor adventure lecturer at City College Norwich. The college offers courses in extreme sports and in sports therapy, and Adam and Phil saw that by bringing the two together they could meet a need for a mobile therapy unit at mountain bike races and the rapidly growing number of extreme sports events.

The therapy unit has a trailer, three marquees and 10 treatment tables providing relief to riders at the end of an intense day’s competition.

The hard work of the 10 sports therapy students manning the unit counts towards the 40 hours of work experience in the field they need as part of their course.

The sports therapy students are all on a one-year course and many will have the opportunity to progress on to the foundation degree in sports health and exercise offered at the college.

Ricardo Carneiro, the unit’s co-ordindator, is one student who has made this progression. He said: “If students can handle being in the middle of a muddy field on a cold, wet winter’s day, dealing with sweaty, filthy and exhausted mountain bikers, then they’ll be able to handle anything.”

Norwich Evening News Tuesday, June 9, 2009