Olympic Dreams Become Reality for 2 Locals

While taking a class in 2005 revolving around sports medicine, injuries and injury rehabilitation, a chiropractor spoke about his experience travelling with Olympic teams and how there is a short list of chiropractors that get invited to the games.

Inspired by the stories, this is where local chiropractor Marc Taczanowski’s Olympic dreams began. 

Taczanowski made his goal of helping Olympic athletes a reality in 2009, travelling then to California and since then going to Lake Placid, NY to work with the winter teams, then St. Moritz, Switzerland and most recently Sochi, Russia for training with the bobsled and skeleton teams.

Taczanowski, who runs True Sport Care with his chiropractor wife Hope Miller at 62 Lake Avenue South in Nesconset, joined Smithtown skeleton athlete John Daly on this journey. Daly began his career as a skeleton athlete in 2001 and has since developed an extensive resume, earning accolades such as placing first in the Lake Placid America's Cup during the 2007-08 season, and winning the St. Moritz Europa Cup and the Igls Europa Cup during the 2008-09 season. 

“The fact that we’re both from Smithtown, for the number of people that are there that’s a pretty high concentration for people form any particular town,” Taczanowski said. “Whether it be during treatment or during downtime, John and I have a pretty good connection just because of our geographical location.”

Taczanowski has travelled with the same teams both in the states and abroad, and labeled the experiences in California and Lake Placid and trips abroad as vastly different.

“On home soil you pretty much have access to a lot of practitioners,” he said. “I think we had four chiropractors, four athletic trainers, we had four or five massage therapists. The Amount of work everybody had to do was a little, it wasn’t that comprehensive. In Sochi, being I was the only chiropractor there, my duties were quite a bit more extensive.”

Some of those duties included acute care, massage therapy, trackside emergency procedures and more.

While Taczanowski said he made a strong connection with the bobsled and skeleton teams throughout his travels that it has not yet been determined if he will travel with the teams to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia.

Want to see John Daly's extensive Olympic resume? Click here to see statistics and accomplishments of Daly via the Team USA website.