When she was a kid, Dr. Gloria Beim dreamed she’d one day attend the Olympics. In July, she’ll go for the fourth time — though not as an athlete.
Mementos sit on the floor of Dr. Gloria Beam’s office at the Gunnison Valley Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Clinic in Gunnison, CO on Thursday, June 27, 2024. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post)
Beim, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist who lives in Crested Butte and works in Gunnison, has treated U.S. athletes at three previous Olympic Games and four Paralympics, which follow the Olympics by about two weeks and feature elite athletes with disabilities.
She’ll make another trip to the upcoming Summer Games in Paris, which start July 26, as Team USA’s head physician.
Beim first started working with USA Cycling in 1997, about a year after she moved to Crested Butte. From there, she volunteered to work with aspiring Olympians training in Colorado Springs and traveled with the ski team to the World University Games in Italy in 2003. That trip was particularly enjoyable, because she got to follow the team’s skiers on their practice runs.
“The whole time I was there, I was just chasing the athletes down the hill in case they needed me,” she said.
When she worked the Athens Games in 2004, Beim expected she wouldn’t get another opportunity. At the time, few doctors who weren’t on the Olympic committee’s permanent staff got to travel for two Games, she said.
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“The mantra was, ‘Do one and you’re done,’ ” she said.
Since then, Beim has taken care of athletes at the Olympics in London and Sochi, in southern Russia, as well as at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Beijing and Pyeongchang, South Korea.
At Sochi, she was chief medical officer for the U.S. delegation, overseeing 77 providers caring for 235 athletes competing in the Winter Games. (In her current role, as head physician, she’ll report to the chief medical officer and medical director.)
“Having tremendously accomplished and experienced practitioners like Dr. Beim join the Team USA games medical staff allows the (U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) to give excellent care to U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in some of their most important moments,” USOPC Chief Medical Officer Jon Finnoff said in a statement. “The games’ environment demands expert medical and collaboration skills. Dr. Beim has both in abundance and we are thankful she has made a commitment to Team USA an important part of her work.”
Beim thinks her ability to learn enough of the host countries’ languages to get whatever resources the athletes may need might be what made her stand out to the committee. She learned some Russian, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin and now French, though Russian is the one that stuck.
About half of the 58 medical providers traveling with Team USA, including Beim, are volunteers, though the Olympic committee covers their airfare and other expenses that go …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Sports
