GORHAM – A faculty member at the Gorham campus of the University of Southern Maine was instrumental in keeping two U.S. teams fit and ready to win medals in the recently concluded Winter Olympic games in Sochi, Russia.
Ben Towne, 36, a lecturer in the university’s Department of Exercise, Health and Sport Sciences, will return home in March. He served as an athletic trainer for the U.S. bobsled and skeleton teams with a mix of 25 men and women athletes.
“It was a tremendous experience,” Towne said by telephone from Sochi on Feb. 21. “It’s emotional.”
Towne, who lives in Saco, said on Feb. 21 that the teams had earned a medal in every event.
“We’re really lucky,” he said, as they entered the final weekend.
The U.S. women’s bobsled teams won silver and bronze medals and the U.S. two-man bobsled team won a bronze, according to results posted on the teamusa.org web site.
Then on Sunday, the day the Olympics concluded, the U.S. four-man bobsled team finished third, earning a bronze medal, the website reported. The U.S. team finished .39 seconds behind the Russian entry that won the gold medal and Latvia finished second, winning the silver.
Towne, a native of Denmark, Maine, was one of 17 certified athletic trainers selected for the 2014 Olympic Games from 35,000 members of the National Athletic Trainers Association, according to a University of Southern Maine report.
His Olympic duties included attending to the teams’ injuries and working with the team doctor and chiropractor.
But, Towne last week declined comment on any injuries.
“They kept us busy,” he said.
The skeleton competition features athletes going head first on a sled. Towne had an opportunity to ride 80 miles per hour in a bobsled and said he gained a “new-found respect” for the athletes.
A University of Southern Maine statement said Towne has taken care of elite U.S. athletes on the bobsled and skeleton teams for years on World Cup tours.
Towne said last week he has been away from the Gorham campus and Maine since Dec. 27. Leading up to the Olympics, he toured with the U.S. teams in World Cup competition that included events in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.
According to the university, Towne spent two days in Munich for processing and it was where they received Olympic apparel before flying to Sochi, which is on the Black Sea.
In Sochi, he stayed in the Olympic Village. Towne described the food with American and Russian dishes as pretty good. He said Russian people are “incredibly” open.
“Everyone is friendly,” he said.
Towne said he didn’t have to break out the clothes he had packed for the coldest weather. He said it was 50 degrees last Friday.
As far as security, he felt safe, but said security was “not overbearing. There’s a feeling of safety,” he said.
The Olympic games ran from Feb. 7 to Feb. 23.
Towne was jubilant about the Olympic experience. “I’m blessed to be part of it,” Towne said.
Ben Towne of the University of Southern Maine Gorham served the U.S. bobsled and skeleton teams as athletic trainer at the recent Olympic games in Sochi, Russia. Send questions/comments to the editors.
