The man is still in motion
Hansen always put focus on what he can do, not what he can’t
Emblematic of Canada’s “can-do not can’t-do” character, Richard Marvin Hansen exemplifies world champion figure skater Scott Hamilton’s observation that the only disability in life is a bad attitude.
His reputation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the cause of creating a world without barriers to others like him through the Rick Hansen Foundation and the Rick Hansen Institute.
Born in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island on Aug. 26, 1957, he grew up in Williams Lake.
It was there, riding in the back of a friend’s truck on their way home from a fishing trip, that he suffered the spinal injury that paralyzed him below the waist.
He was 15, and his promising athletic career — he had already won all-star honours in five sports — was snuffed out. Except it wasn’t. Faced with a serious injury, he focused on rehabilitation. For Hansen, the problem was not what could have been, but what would be.
In 1976, he enrolled at the University of B.C. in physical education. He was the first student with a physical disability to earn such a degree there. He found a whole world of sport for people with his abilities. He won eight national championships in wheelchair volleyball and basketball.
In 1977, he recruited Terry Fox to his basketball team. Then, between 1979 and 1984, Hansen turned to the racetrack. He won 19 wheelchair marathons and was three times a world champion. At the 1982 Pan American Games, he won nine gold medals. At Paralympiads in 1980 and 1984, he won three gold, two silver and a bronze. He became the first wheelchair marathoner to break the two-hour barrier.
Inspired by Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, Hansen launched a mission to show the potential of those with disabilities and to encourage a more accessible world. He would circumnavigate the globe in his wheelchair. The Man in Motion World Tour departed Vancouver on March 22, 1985. When he returned in 1987, he had traversed 34 countries — in Beijing, a million people welcomed him — travelling more than 40,000 kilometres, raising $26 million, and was a global A-list celebrity.
The list of his awards and honours is longer than this brief sketch. Among them are the Order of Canada, a Lou Marsh Award shared with hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, and more than a dozen honorary doctorates, living proof that 70 per cent of the word “disability” is “ability.”