La Roche on the road to recovery

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This article was published 14/04/2023 (1212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s Shae La Roche is the oldest and most seasoned member of the Canadian women’s water polo team.

The 30-year-old athlete’s absence from the lineup during the recent Pan Am Aquatics Championships in Bauru, Brazil was not a signal she was winding down her international career.

Instead, the Grant Park High School grad is taking time to recuperate following surgery 13 days ago to repair an injured left shoulder.

La Roche is eyeing a possible mid-summer return to a national team that won gold in Brazil to qualify for the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, July 14-30 in Fukuoka, Japan.

“It’s my left shoulder — people think, ‘Oh, you’re not throwing with it,’ but we’re doing so much. We’re swimming, pushing, pulling and being pulled,” said La Roche from her home base in Laval, Que., earlier this week. “I kind of battled the injury for a while and then it just got to the point where it clearly needed surgery…

“It’ll be a good three, four months recovery, but then I’ll actually be really good to go for an Olympic year.”

Shoulder and hip injuries tend to be the most common long-term ailments in the sport. National team head coach David Parelda suggested a careful approach to La Roche’s rehabilitation process.

“She’s a great athlete and she’s been dealing with a lot of injuries before and she’s always been very professional about about it,” Paradelo said Friday from a training camp in Rome. “She’s a veteran and basically the success of her surgery and the recovery following through will pretty much dictate (her return). There’s been some different shoulder injuries on the team in the past (quadrennial) and they’ve all recovered very professionally and are back to play.

“This surgery has a six-month period without playing and if things go according to plan, I think she’ll be ready for that time.”

The 5-5 left wing is confident she will be in top form before long.

“It’s totally doable and actually it’s nice that it’s is my left (shoulder), not my right so I don’t have to learn to re-throw,” said La Roche. “I’m using it a lot but it’s not really the same as your dominant arm and luckily, like through rehab, I have my dominant arm to do everything. It was more of a decision just so that I would be able to play. The surgery wouldn’t have been as necessary if I didn’t want to be an athlete.”

The worlds in Fukuoka will be the first opportunity for the Canadian women to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics with a subsequent opportunity to qualify at the Pan Am Games, scheduled for Oct. 20-Nov. 5 in Santiago, Chile.

“The top two teams (from Kukuoka) are qualified for the Olympics,” said Paradelo. “Of course, our hope is that this happens sooner than later. It will be a tough one, but it’s feasible.”

La Roche and the Canadian team finished seventh at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 while placing ninth at the 2022 worlds in Hungary.

Since graduating from Indiana University in 2014, she’s lived full time in Laval to be close to the national team training site in Montreal, with the exception of time spent with SIS Roma in the Italian pro league.

La Roche did not consider opting for retirement instead of surgery.

“There was never really a thought of retiring (this year),” said La Roche. “Because the plan is to retire after these Olympics. But even after that I want to be able to play club with my friends and my husband plays and I don’t want to have to stop water polo and never use my shoulder again.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca