Canadians to watch at the Winter Paralympics
Plus, why organizers pulled a U-turn and banned Russians
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The Games begin tomorrow — here are some Canadians to watch
Off the top, there's para hockey player Greg Westlake and wheelchair curler Ina Forrest, who were named yesterday as Canada's flag-bearers for the opening ceremony on Friday. Westlake is set to compete in his fifth Paralympic Games and has already helped the Canadian team to a medal of each colour. Forrest is playing in her fourth Paralympics and owns a pair of gold along with a bronze.
Here are some more Canadian athletes to watch when competition gets underway on Friday night:
Hockey: Tyler McGregor and Billy Bridges
McGregor inherited the Canadian team captaincy from Westlake following the 2018 Paralympics, where McGregor led the squad in scoring with 13 points (including eight goals) in five games. In Beijing, the 27-year-old from Forest, Ont., will try to help Canada bounce back from its heartbreaking loss in the gold-medal game four years ago. The United States scored the tying goal with just 38 second left in regulation and then won in overtime to capture its third consecutive Paralympic title.
Also looking to avenge that defeat is the 37-year-old Bridges, who is the only Canadian to record at least 100 goals and 100 assists in international play.
Cross-country skiing: Brian McKeever
This will be the sixth and final Games for Canada's most decorated Winter Paralympian, who has won 13 gold medals and 17 total since 2002. McKeever, who is visually impaired, won 10 of those medals with his older brother Robin serving as his guide (their story was depicted in that great commercial you may have seen recently). Now skiing with Russell Kennedy or Graham Nishikawa as his guide, the 42-year-old from Canmore, Alta., will compete in three individual races and possibly a relay in Beijing. Read more about McKeever here.
Cross-country skiing and biathlon: Mark Arendz
He won six medals in 2018 — three in each type of Nordic skiing — to set the Canadian record for a single Winter Paralympics. The 32-year-old from Hartsville, P.E.I., owns a total of eight Paralympic medals, including a gold in the men's 15km standing event from 2018, and he'll have plenty of chances to add more in Beijing. Arendz is once again competing in six events, over just nine days. Read more about him here.
Snowboarding: Tyler Turner and Lisa DeJong
The Winter Paralympics' youngest sport was added to the program in 2014, and Canada is still looking for its first medal. That could change in Beijing after four Canadian snowboarders combined to win eight medals, including three gold, at the World Para Snow Sports Championships in January. Turner won gold in men's snowboard cross and added a bronze in dual banked slalom, while DeJong took silvers in those events on the women's side.
Turner and DeJong also won gold at the worlds in the non-Paralympic team snowboard cross events with partners Alex Massie and Sandrine Hamel, respectively. Massie and Hamel both reached individual podiums in dual banked slalom as well. These four athletes are Canada's only snowboarders at the Beijing Paralympics.
Alpine skiing: Mollie Jepsen, Mac Marcoux and Katie Combaluzier
About two-thirds of Canada's Winter Paralympic medals have come in alpine, including 10 of the 28 the country collected in 2018. Jepsen won four of those, taking gold in the women's standing super-combined event, silver in the slalom and bronze in the downhill and giant slalom as an 18-year-old. At the world championships in January she won silver in the super-G and bronze in the downhill and giant slalom.
Marcoux is Canada's only other returning alpine gold medallist from the 2018 Paralympics, where he added the men's visually impaired downhill title to the giant slalom crown he won in 2014. Despite being only 24 years old, Marcoux already owns five Paralympic medals and five world titles.
Combaluzier, 28, tied Jepsen for the Canadian lead in alpine medals at this year's world championships, taking silver in the women's sitting giant slalom and super-combined and bronze in the downhill.
Live coverage of Friday's opening ceremony starts at 6:30 a.m. ET on the CBC TV network, CBC Gem, CBCSports.ca and the CBC Sports app. Those platforms will carry live competitions starting Friday night until the closing ceremony on March 13. See the full streaming schedule here and the TV schedule here. Read more about CBC Sports' Paralympic coverage plans here.
WATCH | Jepsen looks to turn more heads in Beijing:
Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from the Paralympics after all
In a stunning reversal today, the International Paralympic Committee overturned its controversial decision to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete as "neutral" athletes in the Winter Games opening Friday in Beijing. They are now banned outright, echoing the moves made by several other international sports organizations this week in response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia with help from its ally Belarus.
To be clear, the IPC did not change course on its own. Its hand was forced by a grassroots movement of athletes expressing their anger and refusing to compete against Russian athletes. After the wheelchair curling teams from Latvia and South Korea provided the spark by saying they would not play the Russian squad, it quickly became apparent that others might follow suit — and that entire countries might even pull out of the Games in protest. The atmosphere in the Athletes' Village also turned "very, very volatile," according to IPC president Andrew Parsons.
Only then did the IPC, which had feared being sued if it expelled athletes from Russia and Belarus, decide the situation had become untenable and there was no choice but to ban them to preserve the event. "The war has now come to these Games," Parsons said in announcing the U-turn.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee said it was "pleased" with the move. The Russian Paralympic Committee called it "baseless" and "illegal" while the Kremlin called it "monstrous" and a "disgrace." Parsons, who said he expects legal action from the Russian and Belarusian Paralympic committees (though that hasn't happened yet), apologized to the athletes from those countries. "You are victims of your governments' actions," he said.
Read more about the surprising turn of events here. Read about what might be next, including possible appeals, here. Read about the arrival of the 29-athlete Ukrainian team, which one official called a "miracle," here.
Quickly...
Canadian speed skater Laurent Dubreuil is halfway to becoming the men's sprint world champion. If you're unfamiliar, the sprint worlds are made up of four races: both a 500m and a 1,000m are held on consecutive days, skaters accumulate points in each, and at the end the winner is crowned the sprint world champ. At the halfway point in Norway, Dubreuil sits atop the men's standings after posting the best time in today's 500m and placing third in the 1,000m. If he can hold on tomorrow, he'll become the first Canadian man to win the sprint world title since Jeremy Wotherspoon did it four times in five years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Dubreuil finished second the last time the event was held, in 2020. He won the 500m gold at last year's single distances world championships and took silver in the 1,000m at the Beijing Olympics last month after placing a disappointing fourth in the 500. Read about today's skates and watch highlights here. Watch Dubreuil go for the title live Friday starting at noon ET on CBCSports.ca and the CBC Sports app.
You're up to speed. Talk to you tomorrow.
