The Canadian Paralympic team boasts multi-medal winning athletes, which should make a strong charge towards the other half of the goals set out by the Own the Podium program: to finish among the top three nations in the gold-medal count at these Games.
Out at the Callaghan Valley's Whistler Paralympic Park, Whistler's Tyler Mosher will charge through his Paralympic events on home snow, along with a team of 12 athletes selected by Cross-Country Canada to take on the world.
In a group that includes five athletes who have already earned medals at IPC World Cup, world championship or Paralympic events, Brian McKeever of Canmore, Alta., and Colette Bourgonje of Saskatoon, Sask., are the other headliners.
A legally blind cross-country skier who qualified for the 2010 Canadian Olympic team, McKeever is guided by his Olympian brother Robin in Paralympic events and has won seven medals so far in two Games.
The great wheelchair athlete Bourgonje will compete in her sixth Winter Paralympics, having won four medals each in Winter and Summer Paralympics.
McKeever sought to push himself to his best level - and show people what Paralympians are capable of - by becoming the first person to compete in both Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, but came up just short. He was named to Canada's cross-country team for the 2010 Games, but at the end was not selected to race.
"It was a very difficult thing to have to swallow," McKeever said, but he appreciated the response of people throughout Whistler and Canada after the disappointment.
But, he said, he felt better after doing an interview on the CTV stage in Whistler Village.
"People were coming up to me on the street and offering their support," he said. "That was a such a cool thing, to know people from Whistler, and Canadians in general, were ready to offer up their support."
Though the blow is "rapidly becoming distant history now," McKeever said, it's left him talking about trying for another four years to get back into that position - luckily for Canadians who want to cheer on his success.
"It definitely feels like there's a lot of unfinished business," he said.
Now he's intently focused on the 2010 Paralympics, where he'll compete with Robin in five cross-country ski and biathlon races. In their third Paralympics, McKeever said they're again ready to go in as favourites and perform to that standard, as they did in 2006.
"We can go in knowing out preparation is good," he said.
The action starts on Saturday (March 13) with downhill races at Creekside and biathlon events in the Whistler Paralympic Park.
Canada's Para-Nordic team: Mark Arendz, Springton, P.E.I.; Jody Barber, Smithers; Colette Bourgonje; Sebastien Fortier, Quebec; Langley's Lou Gibson; Ottawa's Margarita Gourbonova, guided by Robert D'Arras; Courtney Knight, guided by Mary Benson and Andrea Bundon, Vancouver; Brian and Robin McKeever; Tyler Mosher; Ottawa's Alexei Novikov, guided by Jamie Stirling; Robbie Weldon and guide Brian Berry, Thunder Bay, Ont.
