The easy decision would have been to let Brian McKeever race. The easy decision, for Dave Wood, the Canadian cross-country team coach, would have been the politically correct one to make. The easy decision would have been a disaster.

McKeever is an inspiration. McKeever is legally blind. That did not stop him from dreaming about competing at the Olympics. Sunday would have been his day to do it. McKeever was expected, or at least, he was projected to compete in the men's 50km marathon. Had he done so, he would have become the first Paralympian ever to race against able-bodied athletes at an Olympics. McKeever would have made history. But his coaches denied him the chance.

Canada can only enter four skiers in the event. Alex Harvey, George Grey, Ivan Babikov and Devon Kershaw are our country's top four guns, while McKeever is the No. 5 man. The talent gap between four and five is, according to Wood, "significant." The top four have all notched top 10 finishes at these Games. And they, like McKeever, have spent countless hours -- countless years -- training and dreaming about their opportunity to compete at home in an Olympics. By being the best the country has, the big four earned the right to race in the 50km.

By being the No. 5 man, McKeever did not.

"All the time, we race the best people, and everybody is ranked, and Brian is our No.5 guy," Wood says. "When he qualified for the Olympics, he qualified like any other athlete, and so why should he be treated any different than anybody else?"

Treating McKeever differently and letting him race when he did not deserve to, when he had not earned it, would be seeing McKeever for his disability -- not for the extraordinary talent that got him here in the first place. Like an alternate on a relay team, a back-up goalie, or the fifth man on a four-man bobsled crew, McKeever skied his way on to the Olympic team. 

But his disability does not give him the right to compete because he did. His teammates skied like tigers. They were the pleasant surprise of the Games. And their coach understood that. They were his top four. Dave Wood could have made the politically correct decision, but the decision he made was the right one.