Dave Battison is best remembered as a coach, but he never stopped being an athlete. After representing Canada at the World Ironman Championships in Hawaii he became a cross country ski coach.
When he died suddenly in 2014 he had been the head coach of Mount Washington’s Strathcona Nordics cross-country ski club for a decade. A veteran skier, he could still kick and glide with the best of them.
So it is only fitting that the lifelong athlete is the focus of the Dave Battison Sports Medicine Symposium, Oct. 1 at Mount Washington. Go to goplayoutside.ca for more information, buy tickets and to learn about the 11 presenters.
“Feedback from the 2015 symposium highlighted the need for topics dealing with adult athletes,” says Wayne Crowe, a Courtenay doctor and spokesperson for the event. “We recognized that active people can be of any age and ability and we wanted to have topics that would be inclusive of the entire spectrum.”
The symposium was originally intended to keep health-care professionals up to date on the latest research and understanding related to sports medicine, but the organizing group realized early on that the presentations had much broader appeal.
In addition to physiotherapists, chiropractors, sports psychologists and family doctors, Crowe thinks anyone that considers themselves an athlete or even active will gain valuable knowledge.
“Exercise is a lifelong pursuit,” he says. “In order to participate for the long term we have to focus on many factors including proper nutrition, weight training and injury prevention. A key message is that exercise is medicine.”
The day long event features speakers with diverse specialities: freediving to ski mountaineering, nutrition to hand health. Morning sessions include the benefits of lifelong exercise, nutrition and supplements for masters athletes and the importance of cardiology screening as athletes age.
In the afternoon the attendees break up into smaller groups focused on a wider range of topics including: psychology of injuries, endurance training principles, new research on specific injury types, mental training and more.
“We have a great lineup of speakers covering a wide range of topics, all of which are very interesting,” says Crowe, a competitive runner. “I think that the talk on the physiologic changes and challenges that older athletes face will be enlightening for everyone.”
Tickets are on sale now at goplayoutside.ca, for the second annual Dave Battison Sports Medicine Symposium at Mount Washington Alpine Resort.
Sponsors for the event include Mount Washington Alpine Resort, Cloutier Matthews Chartered Professional Accountants, The Comox Valley Division of Family Practice, The Joint Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Centre. All proceeds go to the Dave Battison Memorial Fund, which helps Strathcona Nordic skiers compete.