Introduction
Games Summary: 2008
Summer Paralympic Games – Beijing (September 6 – 17)
Chantal
Petitclerc’s smile will be a lasting memory from Beijing—well,
that and the five
gold medals she won screaming down the track at the Bird’s
Nest. But there was
steel under the smile. No one gets to be the best without
some of that
too. Petitclerc showed
the way for Canadian athletes in Beijing, where they earned 50
medals, 19 of them gold. These games were undoubtedly the
most competitive
Paralympic Games yet. And Canada’s fiercely proud team rose
to the challenge.
Or more correctly, they charged at it head on! “Paralympic
sport was legitimized here and the world came to play,”
Canadian swimming head
coach Craig McCord said. “It was probably the hardest, fastest,
fiercest competition at all levels.”McCord's
swimmers won seven gold, five of them by teenager Valerie Grand'Maison and
Chelsey Gotell in the S13 class for the visually impaired. Incredibly,
Grand’Maison and Gotell teamed with Kirby Cote to sweep all
three spots on the
podium—not just once, but twice. And still, the
achievements mounted, and the stories of personal
sacrifice and achievement
became ever more resonant.
Michelle Stilwell, a gold-medal winning
basketball player for Canada in 2000 at Sydney, had stepped
away from hoops to
have her son. Her comeback to sports was complicated by three spinal
surgeries. She still burned to compete though, and took
her speed to the
track where she won gold in the 100m and 200m. Lauren
Barwick of Langley,
B.C., won Canada's first Paralympic equestrian gold medal, plus
a silver, while
riding a sick horse. But with the ups
come the downs. The men’s wheelchair basketball team hadto settle for
silver after two straight golds, a reflection on the depth of
the field and a
common theme in Beijing. “It’s weird losing the last game of
the tournament,”
said forward Patrick Anderson.
How about gold
on the last day then? That’s what sailor Paul Tingley managed,
defeating the defending gold medalist from France on the final
day of the sailing
competition. The performance earned Tingley the honour of being the flag
bearer at the closing ceremonies. "It's humbling to have
been chosen as
closing flag bearer, especially with this team, and all the
successes of the athletes
and their efforts," said Tingley. "It's an unbelievable
honour."
Winning is never
as easy as Petitclerc made it look—it takes some steel to earn metal in
bunches. But her medal-winning teammates—and the proud Canadians who
shared their joy—would attest the smiles are worth every ounce of the
effort.
