FITNESS
Parasport Taking Centre Stage #Wethe15 aims to eliminate discrimination in sport BY BENOIT HUOT DAVE HOLLAND Benoit is the winner of 20 swimming medals in five Paralympic Games and 32 medals in six World Championships, from Longueuil, QC. BENHUOT
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hen I was 16 years old, I competed at my first of five Paralympic Games. They were held in Sydney, Australia, the same city that hosted the Olympic Games a couple of weeks earlier. That Paralympics, in 2000, was an afterthought in Canada. There was no media at the Games, no TV coverage and newspaper stories were mostly relegated to the digest section, if we were lucky.
Most of the public had never heard of the Paralympics. Fast forward to 2021, and it’s a completely different world. The recently completed Paralympic Games in Tokyo received more widespread coverage than ever in Canada. Most sports could be streamed live, and CBC and Radio-Canada provided up to three daily update shows, including a primetime slot for the first time on CBC Sports.
40 I 30th Anniversary Issue 2021 I IMPACT MAGAZINE
And Canadian athletes such as swimmer Aurélie Rivard and wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos were trending in the news across the country as Canadians expressed their pride and joy in our Paralympians through social media. Since before the turn of the century, many Canadian national sport organizations have integrated Para sport into their programs. For example, the Canadian Swimming