Paralympic Games

Stephanie Dixon, a decorated Paralympian, embarks on new journey as U of T grad student

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:17:15 +0000

Stephanie Dixon, a decorated Paralympian, embarks on new journey as U of T grad student

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/13/2021 - 12:17

Cutline

Stephanie Dixon, who is beginning a master's degree in kinesiology at U of T, was Canada’s chef de mission at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (all photos courtesy of Stephanie Dixon)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Graduate Students

Paralympic Games

When the 2020 Paralympic Games wrapped up earlier this month, Stephanie Dixon, Canada’s chef de mission at the Games in Tokyo, had just enough time to change out of her Team Canada gear before embarking on a new quest: a master’s degree in kinesiology at the ��Ƶ.

Born without her right leg and hip and with a medical condition known as omphalocele, Dixon started swimming at the age of two. She was 13 when she began competitive swimming and 14 when she joined Canada's national Paralympic team.

At the age of 16, she won five gold medals at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, setting the Canadian record for most golds at a single Games. Since then, she has gone on to win many more medals and set world records, booking herself a spot in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and an appointment to the Order of Canada.

Dixon won five gold medals at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, setting the Canadian record for most golds at a single Games.

Dixon graduated with a psychology degree from the University of Victoria and, in 2011, moved to the Yukon, where she was head coach of the Yukon Graylings Master Swim Club. At U of T, Dixon will be studying ways to protect athletes from maltreatment with Professor Gretchen Kerr, dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education.

Writer Jelena Damjanovic caught up with Dixon recently to talk about what inspired her as an athlete and what she’s looking forward to most as a U of T student.

Congratulations on your many accomplishments, not the least of which was being named the chef de mission of the Canadian team at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo this summer. What was that experience like?

Thank you! It was an incredible experience, especially since we were not sure if the Games would even happen. Being the chef de mission for Team Canada was a huge honour and I was thrilled to be able to support our athletes through the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

I was very impressed at how well the Games were run given that we are still batting the global pandemic. I was so happy to see that the health and safety of everyone involved, including the citizens of Japan, was the highest priority.
These Games were not easy on any front. I admire and stand in awe of the level of resilience, adaptability and global community that was evident throughout the Games. Our Canadian athletes should be very proud of the efforts and performances they gave. They represented Canada so well.

Will you be moving from the Yukon to Toronto for your graduate studies? What are you most looking forward to about grad school?

Given the very quick turnaround time from the Paralympic Games into grad school, I will be doing my first term remotely from the Yukon and moving to Toronto in December.

While I have loved my time in the Yukon, I am excited to return to Toronto and re-connect with my friends and family in the area as well as join the U of T grad school community. I am very passionate about sport and activity. That makes diving into the field of safeguarding in sport – to learn and contribute to ideas on how we can deliver sport in a way that is safe, inclusive and accessible for all people – the perfect next step for me.

Why did you decide to study the subject of safeguarding athletes? What has been your experience with sport and athlete maltreatment?

Sport can be the most empowering and transformative experience, or it can be a space where harm is done – and sometimes it is both. I have witnessed and experienced sport from both sides and truly believe there is a better way to deliver sport in Canada and around the world. I don’t think the pathway forward is simple or easy, but I want to be part of the discussions and initiatives that will help us all feel good when we move and grow in our bodies and minds through sport and activity.

I read that you started swimming at age two. How did you end up in the pool so early?

My parents knew that I would have challenges in my life. Not because of my body, but because of the attitude society would have about my body. They wanted to raise me to be strong in body and mind, and for me to know that my body was capable and powerful before I was old enough to notice the stigma around disability.

You started competing at age 13, joined Canada’s Paralympic team at age 14 and, at 16, competed in your first Paralympics, where you broke the Canadian record for the number of gold medals won at a single Games. What drove you to achieve so much so young?

I never had the goal to be a high-performance athlete or a Paralympian; I didn’t even know what the Paralympics were growing up. I just loved to swim and loved to push my limits. Focusing on the process and journey of being the best possible swimmer I could be, of learning and growing as much as possible, was my motivation through to the end of my swimming and Paralympic career.

You once described yourself as an athlete first and foremost, and Paralympian second. Can you elaborate?

As with many people, I have grown a lot in the last number of years in my awareness of my own biases and ableism. Yes, even Paralympians and people with disability have ableist views as we are all conditioned the same way. It took me a very long time to be proud of myself for being a woman/athlete with a disability and of being a Paralympian.

So, in the past, I would have preferred to be called a high-performance athlete rather than a Paralympian. That is not the case today, especially because I know now that they are synonymous. I still face ableist comments and language on a regular basis and there is much work left to be done. But I do believe, as a society, we are moving in the right direction.

What does it take to be a record-breaking athlete and a Paralympian?

Love of the sport, an incredible amount of support, determination, resilience – and a boatload of courage.

Paralympian Kaley McLean found support to chase her dreams at U of T Scarborough

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:27:25 +0000

Paralympian Kaley McLean found support to chase her dreams at U of T Scarborough

geoff.vendeville Fri, 08/27/2021 - 10:27

Cutline

U of T Scarborough alumna Kaley McLean, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age two, competed in the Paralympic Games in three swimming events (Photo by Ken Jones)

Topic

If anyone knows about the positive role sport can play, it’s University of Toronto Scarborough alumna and former Paralympian Kaley McLean.

McLean, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age two, competed for Canada in three swimming events at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. She says competing in the Paralympics was instrumental in shaping her identity.

"It allowed me to grow in confidence and believe in myself. It also helped me stay mentally strong and physically capable," she says.

McLean says her experience at the Paralympics was exhilarating – including the moment she heard the national anthem. While she didn't make it to the podium that summer, she later won gold and silver medals in the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CP-ISRA) World Championships held in Connecticut.

The Paralympic Games gives visibility to athletes with disabilities, challenges stereotypes and shifts the narrative towards a focus on people of different skills and abilities, McLean says.

What became the Paralympics originated in Great Britain in 1948 with the Stoke-Mandeville Games.Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, a German-British neurologist and head of the Stoke-Mandeville Hospital's Spinal Cord Injury Unit, came up with the idea and organized the first competition for athletes using wheelchairs. The first official Paralympics took place in Rome in 1960.

Now in its 16th summer, the Games bring together thousands of world-class athletes from around the globe to compete in 22 summer sports, including two new events in Tokyo this year: badminton and taekwondo. Canada sent 128 athletes to the current games in Japan, which began on Tuesday. The Team Canada roster includes Matthew Cabraja, a math and physical science major at U of T and Varsity Blues swimmer, who is competing in the S11 category of para-swimmers in Tokyo.

McLean began her swim training in 1995 at the pool at Variety Village, a sports, fitness and wellness facility for people of all abilities, and supplemented her swimming with dry-land training at U of T Scarborough starting in 2002. She earned her bachelor of arts degree in 2007 from U of T Scarborough. In addition to downhill skiing, she still swims in her spare time and has a black belt in taekwondo.

Kaley McLean (centre) visited Tina Doyle (left) when she first enrolled at U of T Scarborough to get information about UTSC athletic facilities and services. Laurie Wright (right) was McLean's personal trainer. (Submitted photo)

She initially enrolled at U of T Scarborough because it was an accessible and wheelchair-friendly campus, and says that the campus provided her with the support she needed to succeed in her educational and athletic goals. When she first enrolled, McLean visited Tina Doyle, the director of AccessAbility Services, to get information about the university's athletic facilities.

Doyle acknowledges the importance of sports in students' physical and mental health, noting the department of athletics and recreation has many resources to help students of all abilities and athletic skills achieve their goals.

“It is important for our students with disabilities to see that having a disability does not have to limit them,” Doyle says.

She adds that the determination, hard work and athleticism shown by McLean in becoming a Paralympian is something all students can be motivated by – and helps dispel stereotypes about people with disabilities.

McLean says AccessAbility Services was very supportive during her time as an undergraduate. "They made it happen. I was put in touch with (personal trainer) Laurie Wright, and she guided me to use the equipment available in the weight room," she says.

Wright, a fitness program co-ordinator at U of T Scarborough, said McLean was able to do only her dry-land training on campus at the time, but now with the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC), students can train in the pools. TPASC also houses the training centre for the men's and women's wheelchair basketball teams, who are currently 0-2 and 2-0 in Japan.

“Now the university co-owns a track and a pool that students with all abilities can use quite easily,” Wright says. “Both areas can be accessible for students using mobility devices as they are equipped with accessible change rooms, doors and lifts to assist. It’s an amazing change.”

Looking back at her time as an undergraduate student, McLean says that being involved in athletics and the support she received from AccessAbility Services helped her become the person she is today.

"AccessAbility Services is an excellent resource. They helped me with my studies and my athletic endeavours from the beginning," she says.

She encourages current students to find their passion, like she did, and make use of all available resources, especially those that can help you succeed.

"Find what you love to do. It could be sports, arts or writing – whatever it is, if you love it you will live it.”

2016 Paralympics: Media depictions of disabled athletes are improving, says U of T researcher

lavende4 — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:36:43 +0000

2016 Paralympics: Media depictions of disabled athletes are improving, says U of T researcher

lavende4 Tue, 08/30/2016 - 09:36

Cutline

Brazilian and Canadian rugby players during a test event for the Rio 2016 Paralympics (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Alyson Musial

Author legacy

Alyson Musial

Topic

With the 2016 Paralympic Games starting next week in Rio de Janeiro, writer Alyson Musial sat down to chat with Nancy Quinn (below), a sport physiotherapist and ��Ƶ Masters graduate who researches the intersection of sport, disability and media. Nancy is a veteran of six Paralympic Games and has received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the Paralympic movement in Canada. Alyson also spoke to Nancy’s advisor, Department of Physical Therapy Professor Karen Yoshida, about how Paralympic athletes are represented in the media.

Nancy, tell us why you are so passionate about the Paralympic Games.

Quinn: Where to start? I graduated in 1987 with a BScPT fully entrenched in the medical model of disability; patients with a disability had a problem that required fixing. I had spent 4 years learning the biology and pathology of impairment, and had been taught strategies and techniques to repair, modify and at the very least, limit the progress of impairment. Upon reflection, I received little if any exposure to people outside of the acute care setting who lived with physical difference. In four years of university I met no one who worked outside the home, had a family, played sport, dated, and lived with a disability.

And so began my illustrious career of fixing people who I really knew nothing about.

A series of fortunate circumstances placed me on the medical team of Team Canada at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Here I met a community of people with diverse physical impairments, who were highly athletic, and were passionate about elite sport and competition. These same people travelled, danced, dined out, had children, married and divorced (not necessarily in that order), worked, and lived with a disability. These people also faced a variety of societal challenges.

Post Atlanta, I was hooked. I had discovered a sporting community where physical difference did not preclude athletic excellence. I returned home to central Ontario brimming with stories and enthusiasm to discover that there had been no media coverage of these Games whatsoever.

Zero.

Nothing in The Globe and Mail, our national newspaper, and no television coverage. My friends and family congratulated my volunteerism with these Games, using language of charity and benevolence. How good it was of me to help those people out! I found this very frustrating. Six Paralympic Games later and I am a proud and passionate advocate for the Canadian Paralympic movement and a disability scholar in the making.

How are disabled athletes represented in the Canadian media?

Yoshida: Sport journalism has traditionally featured athletes with disability far less often than able-bodied athletes. When athletes with a disability do receive coverage, their disability is framed as a tragedy, and that sport offers the athlete the opportunity to recover from, or transcend, this tragedy to achieve a more “normal”, able-bodied life. This framework celebrates their athletic achievement, but only as a triumph over the personal tragedy of impairment. Also, female Paralympic athletes are represented less often than their male counterparts. Male athletes who use wheelchairs, who are white and identify as heterosexual receive more frequent, diverse coverage than other athletes with disability.

Our research also shows that Paralympic athletes are faced with a complex dilemma: when the sport media choose to represent a Paralympian as an elite athlete by minimizing their physical difference, the athlete becomes more relatable to a non-disabled viewing audience. Yet conversely, embracing physical difference establishes credibility for athletes within their disabled community. The tension between minimizing difference for non-disabled audiences, and highlighting difference for audiences with a disability, is a very interesting and challenging reality for the Paralympic community and makers of media.

How do conversations around disability, sport and the media affect rehabilitation?

Yoshida: It’s no mystery that media plays an influential role in our lives. Rehabilitation professionals need to work diligently to think critically about disability, which can be challenging given most clinicians are educated and socialized professionally in the biomedical model of disability, wherein disability equates to incapacity. Discussions of athleticism, and therefore ability, challenge assumptions of the biomedical model and encourage new ways of thinking about rehabilitation, which is great! As media continues to construct more alternative, positive cultural representations of athletes and ability, the language and practice around physical difference will evolve within the field of rehabilitation.

Are media representations of para-sport evolving?

Quinn: The good news is, things are improving. Working with Karen while doing my Masters, I looked at CBC’s coverage of the 2004 Paralympic Games. CBC did a great job of representing our Canadian Paralympic athletes as athlete first. This was a truly positive step. Since the early 2000s, there is evidence to support that media representations of female and male Paralympic athletes have been growing, in quantity and quality. Slowly, the media is embracing more multi-dimensional representations of Paralympic.

It’s 2016 and my inbox is full of great media regarding para-sport in Canada and the pending Rio Paralympic Games, informed by person first/athlete first language. I find videos on YouTube of people with physical difference dancing, giving advice on dating or how to prepare for a job interview, and playing sport.

But it’s 2016 and I still see people with mobility difference unable to move through the snow on a city sidewalk that has not been cleared. I hear able bodied people in my clinic waiting room speaking overly loud to others who have obvious physical difference. I see big budget films at the theater with story lines that reinforce the tragedy of disability.

It’s 2016 and media representation of para-sport, Paralympians and disability has evolved and continues to evolve. We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

2016 Paralympics: U of T physical therapist looking forward to supporting role at #Rio2016

lavende4 — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:28:59 +0000

2016 Paralympics: U of T physical therapist looking forward to supporting role at #Rio2016

lavende4 Fri, 08/26/2016 - 10:28

Alyson Musial

Author legacy

Alyson Musial

Topic

Women's College Hospital

The 2016 Paralympic Games will be taking place September 7 to 18, and Mireille Landry, a physical therapy lecturer and exercise coordinator for the Women’s Cardiovascular Health Initiative at Women’s College Hospital, will be in Rio de Janeiro with the Canadian athletes. The Faculty of Medicine’s Alyson Musial talked to Landry about her role.

Tell us about your role on the Health Sciences Team for Team Canada. How will you be helping our Canadian Paralympic athletes?

I will be assigned specific teams or athletes that are part of the Canadian Paralympic Team, and accompany these athletes/teams to their training sessions and events. I’ll be on hand for any sporting event preparation, as well as emergency first aid. My “office” is the change room, the playing field, and the Team Canada clinic in our residence at the athlete’s village.

My role will involve providing treatment and rehabilitation of injuries, as well as support for performance through injury prevention, maintenance and recovery interventions. I mainly use manual and exercise therapy, soft tissue and taping techniques. Athletes are very in touch with their needs and often require less aggressive treatments than what you might provide in a clinic. They are fine-tuned, high-performance individuals, and gentle approaches are generally more successful. A high-stakes competition isn’t where you “show off” your skills in a new treatment or interfere with the athlete’s preparation!

What is the greatest challenge you face as a member of this team?

A typical day working a multisport event can be long and not very glamorous. I can expect to work from early in the morning to late at night depending on training and event schedules. In an environment where you are consulting and treating athletes in change rooms, on sidelines or the field, you never really know what to expect!

Parasport can be played by athletes with a visual impairment, a spinal cord injury, amputations, cerebral palsy, an intellectual difference, spinal bifida, multiple sclerosis and other different abilities. Treating musculoskeletal injuries in this context can be more complex than in other athletes. I have to take into consideration how their physical difference aids their function and performance, and interacts with equipment they may need. As an example, an athlete may use increased muscle tension to their advantage, so trying to “relax” the muscles would interfere with their performance. I also miss my kids being away for two weeks!

What is the most rewarding aspect of being on the Health Sciences Team?

I love being a “small cog on the big wheel” and helping the Paralympic Games, as well as our Canadian athletes, to thrive. It feels great contributing my knowledge, experience and skills; I call the Games my “happy place”. I also get to connect with other therapists, sports medicine physicians, athletes and the whole team, which is a fantastic learning experience. I’m very much looking forward to the comradery, and expect we’ll have a few adventures along the way.