An underground garage was the team’s first ever recovery centre

By the 2004 summer Paralympics, the concept of active recovery for athletes was becoming increasingly important. The Australian Olympic team had set up a recovery centre outside the athletes’ Village but that was beyond the resources available to the Paralympic team, so a recovery centre was set up in an underground garage in the Australian allotment. The centre was managed by Australian Institute of Sport senior physiologist Inigo Mujika, who came into the Village on a guest pass each morning. Its main feature were portable ice baths, like a shoe-shaped inflatable pool. The baths were chilled with ice cubes. Basketballer Grant Mizens is seen here being lowered into the bath by teammates Troy Sachs, Tristan Knowles and Justin Eveson. The men’s basketball team, athletics and cycling teams were the main users of the centre as they had worked with Mujika and used the techniques in their preparation for the Games. Mujika also manged the use of ice vests for pre-cooling before events and to keep players cool in event breaks.