Paralympian Danielle Peers questions how to eliminate barriers that prevent athletes from getting involved in parasport
The 2022 Winter Paralympics will shine a brief spotlight on Canada’s elite athletes in China over the next 10 days. But much more is needed at the community level to get athletes involved in parasport before they can even dream of competing at an elite level, according to former Paralympian Danielle Peers. While changes are needed at the…
The 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China, concluded on Sunday. The most appropriate term to describe this international sporting event? A mixed bag. The Games were held in a communist country with a long history of authoritarian rule. Most western democracies suggested their athletes take very few personal items to Beijing – or none…
It focuses on making sports fun for their young people
As I write this, Norway is tied for second in total medals and gold medals at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Norwegians are projected to take home 45 medals by the end of these Games, surpassing the 39 they won at the 2018 Winter Olympics. That total was way above those for the United States,…
High expectations and lack of crowds among the many pressures athletes will face at this year’s Games
Team Canada walked into the National Stadium in Beijing for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics on Friday – but it’s not just another day at the office for these elite athletes. They’ve trained and prepared for every eventuality, but the Olympics is unlike any other sporting event. “The Olympics is a circus.…
George Orton won Canada’s first gold medal in the 2,500-metre steeplechase in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris
The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, are over. They came pretty close to never materializing, however. The Tokyo Games were delayed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. And a surge in COVID-19 cases in Japan this year led some health experts to suggest the Olympics should be cancelled. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun…
The lessons you can learn from competition are significant
My Olympic fascination started in 1976 when the summer games took place in Montreal. As a 12-year-old, I was glued to our black and white 12-inch TV for the duration of the Olympics between chores on our family’s hobby farm. I imagined myself on the track pole vaulting 20 feet in the air, swimming on…
As with every aspect of the pandemic-postponed Olympics, the virus will cast a long shadow on how people are fed
The Tokyo Olympic Games are finally upon us. Most of the attention will be given to the athletes, the sports, the empty stands and, of course, COVID-19. But every Olympics brings the gigantic task of feeding an entire village of high-performing humans from all over the world. In Tokyo, that means organizers need to feed…
Or are we prepared to hang a “For sale” sign on our values as a nation?
Canada must call on the International Olympic Committee to relocate the 2022 Winter Olympics out of China. It won’t be the first time Canadian leadership on the world stage meant taking a risk to stand up for human dignity. In 1985, in a hallway outside the United Nations General Assembly, Brian Mulroney added a few…
Wilma Rudolph, Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), Peter Snell and Herb Elliott were the brightest stars in Rome
Sixty years ago this week, the Summer Olympics kicked off. From Aug. 25 to Sept. 11, Rome was the centre of international sporting attention as athletes from more than 80 countries competed for glory. And there was more happening than athletic competition. The Second World War had only concluded 15 years previously and the selection…
Just before Parliament adjourned in June 2008 for summer break, the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada released a report called Broken Promises: The Protestant Experience with Religious Freedom in China in Advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. I was the chair of the commission and was present when the…
The 2022 Winter Paralympics will shine a brief spotlight on Canada’s elite athletes in China over the next 10 days. But much more is needed at the community level to get athletes involved in parasport before they can even dream of competing at an elite level, according to former Paralympian Danielle Peers. While changes are needed at the…
