A high-level athlete doesn’t need to see a sports doctor. Why is that?

If one wishes to observe “begging the question” in the true definition of the phrase, there ya go. Many high-level runners struggle with constant injury. And those are the ones you’ve heard of. The ones you haven’t heard of? They couldn’t stay healthy at the level of training required. At high levels, athletes are pushing themselves right up to the brink of injury, and hopefully not past that point. It’s an otherwise okay article, but that sentence is a swing and a miss.

Yes this is like saying a Formula 1 car doesn't need a pit crew because it's faster than a Honda Civic. The opposite is true: high performance requires operating at the absolute limit of mechanical failure.

Novice athletes operate at 50% of their capacity and have high safety margins. Elite athletes redline at 99%. They need constant medical and PT leverage not because they are "sick," but to manage the structural debt accrued from that volume. The better the athlete, the tighter the feedback loop with their support staff needs to be to prevent system collapse.

Most athletes have (and need!) regular access to shared or personal sports therapists.