East Lansing massage therapist named to Olympics - Lansing State Journal

[massage]

Rio assignment is Reay's fifth Olympics

Buy Photo

Chris Reay, co-owner of East Lansing's Creative Wellness, is pictured in one of the rooms at Creative Wellness in East Lansing. Reay has been named to a team of therapists who will go to the Summer Olympics in Rio this August.(Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)Buy Photo


EAST LANSING – Chris Reay says she’s always been someone who’s achieved what people said she couldn’t.

“I love being told I can’t do something,” she said.

That’s led Reay, a co-owner of East Lansing’s Creative Wellness, to be accepted as a massage therapist for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It will be her fifth Olympic Games, including four Summer Games.

“It’s inspiring to be around people who put all that time, energy and effort to achieve a goal,” she said. “There are lessons in that for me and for others.”

Creative Wellness co-owner Irène Savoyat said Reay has earned her place at the Olympic table.

Chris Reay, left, and an unidentified friend at a USA Track and Field event. (Photo: Courtesy photo)


“Chris is a gifted massage therapist,” Savoyat said. “She has done her homework, and that has given her the kind of experience she’s needed at the international level."

Savoyat praised Reay’s commitment to both sports and quality work.

“It did not come on a silver platter – she had to work to get there,” Savoyat said.

“It’s a great opportunity, and one she had to work for. It says who she is.”

The online application process for the Olympics is complex, with essays and psychological tests on “friendship” and “inspiration”.

“I sense they’re testing for people who could work with others and with leaders,” she said.

Buy Photo
Chris Reay, co-owner of East Lansing's Creative Wellness, is pictured in one of the rooms at Creative Wellness. Reay has been named to a team of therapists who will go to the Summer Olympics in August. (Photo: Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal)


It’s Reay’s first Olympic assignment since 2004, when she worked in the Olympic Village during the Summer Games in Athens, Greece.

She began with the gymnastics and shooting teams at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, and then worked with track and field athletes and in the Olympic Village four years later in Atlanta.

The Barcelona assignment came after extensive training sessions with the “best instructors in our field.”

Reay’s lone Winter Games came in 2002, when she worked in the Olympic Village in Salt Lake City.

Besides finding inspiration in high-flying athletes, Reay said she also appreciates seeing people from all over the world working together as friends.

A typical day at the Olympics is an eight-hour shift, she said. During that time, she will work with athletes representing numerous sports and many different countries.

If business is slow, Reay said therapists will invite coaches to hop up on the tables. They’ll also trade knowledge with each other.

While she's concerned about the Zika virus which has affected Brazil, Reay said she plans to take "all the usual precautions" for traveling to a foreign country.

The 57-year-old metro Detroit native moved with her family to Traverse City when she was 12. She graduated from Traverse City Central High School in 1976 and went on to Michigan State University.

Always athletic from an early age, Reay said she first took an interest in sports massage after her mother would give her massages when she had overextended herself.

When Reay took her first massage class she said she gained confidence by practicing on her friends, many of whom were athletes.

Sports massage has its own techniques specifically for athletes, Reay said, with certain therapies geared to particular sports or specific stages of an athlete’s training.

If you go


The 2016 Olympic Summer Games will take place in Rio de Janiero, Brazil from Aug. 5 through Aug. 21.

Contact Dawn Parker at (517) 377-1056 or dlparker@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at dlparker@lsj.com.

Read or Share this story: http://on.lsj.com/1pvTToz

Let's block ads! (Why?)