Paralympic champ closer to Olympic spot
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 | 8:06 AM ET
The Canadian Press
Visually impaired cross-country skier Brian McKeever is a step closer to becoming the first winter athlete to compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The 30-year-old from Canmore, Alta., won an able-bodied 50-kilometre Noram race on Tuesday, a result he needed to be eligible for the Olympic team.
But the number of spots on Canada's Olympic roster hasn't been confirmed and it will be up to Cross Country Canada to decide if McKeever will race the 50-km distance in Whistler in February.
"It's the best race I could lay down today and whatever happens, happens," McKeever said. "That's all you can ask to have the best race on the day when it matters."
He won in two hours 21 minutes 8.5 seconds.
Brent McMurtry of Calgary was second in 2:22:20.9 and Kevin Sandau of Calgary was third in 2:22:40.4.
McKeever has won seven Paralympic medals, including four gold.
"The message is, you put your mind to it and if you work really hard for it you can do anything," said McKeever.
Five athletes have competed in both the Paralympics and Olympics, and all have been summer athletes:
- South African swimmer Natalie du Toit (amputee).
- American runner Marla Runyan (visually impaired).
- Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka (born without right hand and forearm).
- Italian archer Paola Fantato (polio).
- New Zealand's Neroli Susan Fairhall (paraplegic), who was also an archer.
McKeever said it would be a dream come true to become the first winter athlete to accomplish the feat.
"Ever since I was a little kid watching the 1988 Games in Calgary and coming out here to the Canmore Nordic Centre, watching a couple of races, that was pretty neat," he said. "To have a home Games again in Canada — Olympics and Paralympics — it's just fantastic."
McKeever has Stargardt's disease, an inherited condition of macular degeneration that also claimed his father's eyesight.
His vision is less than 10 per cent and all of it is peripheral.
He compares it to seeing the "doughnut, but not the Timbit."
