Meet Crested Butte surgeon Gloria Beim, Team USA's lead physician at the 2024 Olympics

Colorado is sending more than athletes to Paris.

Crested Butte orthopedic surgeon Gloria Beim is posted in the Olympic village as Team USA's lead physician.

State of play: For Beim, this is her fourth Olympics after previously taking care of athletes in Athens, London and Sochi, where she served as chief medical officer, the Denver Post reported . She also worked the 2016 and 2018 Paralympics.

What she's saying: When she received the Paris invitation, she "almost fainted," she told the Telluride Daily Planet.

• "Even though I've done so many games, every time I get asked, it's the most amazing, exciting feeling," she said.

Meet her: Beim, who moved to Crested Butte in 1996, initially wanted to become a veterinarian because she preferred animals to people at the time. She graduated early from high school and enrolled in college at age 14, the Telluride paper reported.

• Her interest in orthopedics came after personally suffering a knee injury.

What's new: Her focus on top-tier athletes began as the team doctor for USA Cycling in 1997. In between major sporting events, Beim works at Gunnison Valley Health, where she focuses on sports medicine.

• In Paris, she is part of a team of 58 physicians, half of whom are volunteers, who will work long hours over two weeks. "You go there with a sense, 'This is going to be such an amazing experience,' and then multiply it by a thousand," she told the Post.