Paralympic movement growing stronger
Competitor- turned- coach sees positive avenues for para- athletes
Braedon Dolfo was just a toddler when cataracts and chronic uveitis began to peck away at his eyesight. With glaucoma at 11 and after many surgeries, he essentially had tunnel vision, his periphery whittled away by eye disease.
Part of a basketball- loving family, a doctor made a suggestion to him when he was still very young.
“I was just there for an eye appointment and he said, ‘ Have you ever considered paralympics?,'” Dolfo said on Thursday night, after he'd run an 11.33- second 100- metre dash in a preliminary event at the Canadian Track and Field championships in Edmonton. “I had no idea about it,” he said. Now 21, Dolfo is looking to make his second trip to the Paralympic Games. His road to the sport is similar to many competitors, who have a curveball thrown their way in life.
“Since ( joining in) 2008 it's been fun. I'm just trying to come out and have fun with the rest of the guys,” Dolfo said.
As a competitor- turned- coach ( he doesn't recommend the playercoach role, based off of his experiences with it), Saskatoon's Rick Reelie said that recruiting athletes into para- athletics is difficult.
“Parasport is a bit of a different dynamic than able- bodied sport,” he said. “We can get kids that are hurt or injured or born with a birth defect. Or they're 28- years old and dealing with a bike accident.
“You're dealing with a lot of different age groups, mentalities and they all want o get involved at the same level. You have to be very open to how you deal with each one of these kids, or adults, sometimes they're 40- years old. There's no set program for able- bodied kids. There's grade school, high school, track clubs, university and so on. There are a lot of avenues for them to develop in their sport.
“Ours, we're getting much better at it.”
Reelie found success all over the parasports and the Paralympics world as an athlete. He raced a number of distances in track and used throwing events to compete in five Paralympics and win nine medals. Speaking the language of the wheelchair athlete was a driving factor in his becoming a coach.
At the Cyclone Athletics Club in Saskatoon, Reelie sees the importance of putting roots down for his athletes.
“My coach was one of the best coaches out there but he didn't live in the same city,” he said. “We hooked up a number of times a year but for the most part you're training on your own.
“I see groups and programs of where they need a coach, well, ‘ Here, this is what we need to do,' or, ‘ Here's a program let's get going.'
“In the old school we were kind of bad at it because we'd do a weekend camp and it expose it to a bunch of kids and then we'd leave. Now when we do that stuff there is an avenue for them to go into.”
For those that have had their journey start with an accident or an illness, Reelie has seen parasport help ease them through a transitional point in their lives.
“We have a couple of kids here that said without the track club they'd still be struggling after their accident,” he said. “It gives them a common bond and support and they don't feel out of place.
“If they went into a mainstream track club in a wheelchair they're the only ones that are in a wheelchair most of the time. This puts them on an equal playing field and they're all there watching each other's back and supporting all along.”
Whatever the platform in sports, there are often permanent, positive takeaways for the participants.
“This is the same kind of thing but it's deeper,” Reelie said. “There are other avenues across the country, everyone has their own program. If they want to keep going, we take them all the way.”