Noah Lyles' high performance physiotherapist Dr Jo Brown on her ... - Olympics

The moment the hard work starts to pay off

One of Brown's favourite moments in her career is seemingly low-key compared to some of her experiences, but it's one she cites when asked the question.

"So we were in Boston," says Brown of the Indoor Grand Prix in February, in which Lyles was running his unfavoured 60m, "and we've been working on a start and all these things and it was -34, the whole weekend was crazy cold, and my dog had actually passed away in the middle of the night. We had to put my dog down. He was my fur baby.

"And so it was a pretty tough weekend for me, but my husband was so supportive and he's like, 'You know what, babe, you just need to be there for the guys, they need you. You've got to bring your A-game.

"And so I'd had no sleep and we went into this race in Boston... and we turned up to the track and Noah's groin was a bit sore. Sometimes athletes just have something that's niggling and quite often when they come to me and something's niggling, I'm like, 'They're on, they're actually going to run amazing'. And I had this feeling that Noah was going to run amazing even though he's worried about the groin. And we got it to a point that I could prove to him that he was fine and that he could run and the coach was like, can he run?

"I'm like, yeah, he's fine. We've tested it. It's fine. It's just a little niggle and it settled down. And he's warming up and he does the heat, does okay, comes back, we do a little bit more work on the groin and then he is preparing for the final and I look across the track for the coach on the other side and we just did the, 'Yeah, he's good'.

"Beforehand, I can't remember what he said, but it was something kind of off the cuff like I better go alright otherwise, you know, something about, you've got to earn your place kind of thing, in a joke, you know. And I was like, just shut up and go and run.

"And then, he comes back and he does a PB in the 60 (of 6.51s) which he hadn't done in a really, really long time and he comes out and is looking for all his people, and the YouTube guys were there and I remember they just kind of stepped out the way and he just comes around and gives me a hug. And I was like, so do I get to keep my job now?

"He never swears, but he's like, 'F*** yeah', and he kind of gave me this hug like he was going to break me in two.

"It was just this, 'We've got this, we're going to do great things together', kind of thing. It was just special, like it wasn't just a hug, it was a moment that we both knew that we were going to do some awesome things and what this meant."

Brown pauses.

"I think people don't realise the sacrifices athletes make these days and the time on the road and not being able to do things like we all do – like everyone in their high-performance world, all make sacrifices – time away from home, routine, food, sleeping in your own bed, all those kind of things. I've had more time this year in hotel beds than I have in my own bed, but we're on a mission, there's things to do.

"We're going to get that record."

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