Saskatchewan’s first-ever Adapted Physical Activity Symposium offered many activities over three days, including sledge hockey and wheelchair basketball.
“These days are really important because they educate people,” Kim Cousins, a Paralympic coach, said.
“This is the bounce off where you can get almost anybody here to try something, and from there to go on and continue into healthy living, healthy lifestyle and then also possibly competitive sport,” she said.
Becky Richter became a quadriplegic after a car accident near Saskatoon, but she now represents Team Canada in para-athletics.
“When it first happened, it’s really tough,” she said. “It’s a very steep learning curve. You know, you deal with a lot of depression, and you just don’t really understand what’s out there for you.”
She hopes the symposium will change that by helping potential athletes try out parasports.
Teddy Hudye is now in a wheelchair after a dirt biking accident on his way to school. He said it was inspiring to be around Team Canada coaches and para-athletes during the symposium.
“It’s cool. They’re motivation,” he said.
Kayla Cornale works at finding athletes who have Paralympic potential, helping them to grow and reach training milestones.
“This is the best part of my job,” she said. “Days like this are where people sort of have that click moment and realize ‘I like this,'” she said.
Cornale said the development of Paralympic athletes is modelled alongside the development of Olympic athletes. “High performance is high performance. Period,” she said.
“From the beginning, you want to engrain them in a daily training environment that works for them and their schedule, make sure they have a coach that’s aware of what their needs may be.”
Olympic athletes typically start training at a young age before reaching their peak years, but that’s not necessarily the case for Paralympians, Cornale said, because injuries causing disability often happen later in life.
“For that group that has an acquired injury and may think my years as an athlete have passed, I would say that’s not the case,” she said.
Cousins previously coached seven athletes to the Olympics for bobsleigh, skeleton and track and field, and she’s also coached two Paralympic athletes to the big games.
“What they share is the passion and intensity of wanting to do more and do better,” she said. “The biggest change I find between the Olympic body and the Paralympic body is the Paralympian is coming with a challenge. So we have more technical challenges to face, whether it’s their chair or their foot blade … you adjust for that on a daily spectrum.”
Cousins said she’s already looking ahead to the next games in Japan.
“Someone inside this gym, it’s possible they could go to Tokyo. I totally believe that,” she said.
The three-day symposium was held at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport at the University of Regina. It wrapped up Saturday afternoon.
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