Canada may send last-minute para athletes to Rio
Posted August 7, 2016 4:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS 1130) – Swimming Canada could find itself scrambling with the Rio Paralympic games just one month away.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) is issuing a blanket ban on Russian athletes as punishment for the country’s systematic doping program. This suddenly opens 267 athlete slots across 18 sports which sporting groups worldwide are working to fill.
“Right now there’s still a lot of uncertainty with the appeals process as it moves forward,” says James Hood, Swimming Canada’s team leader for the Rio Paralympics. “We certainly have athletes – as every country would – that would want to be at the Paralympic games, it’s a matter of whether it can actually happen.”
Russia’s appeal process could take up to 21 days, and the fill-in athletes will not be confirmed until the appeals are finished.
Russia finished second in the medal count at the 2012 Paralympics in London, with more medals earned in swimming than in any other sport. But even though some of their toughest competition has been eliminated, Hood says it should not make a difference for the Canadian team in Rio.
“That is outside of their control, and really, their focus is on their preparations for when they’re ready to race against anybody that’s in the pool.”
Like the Canadian Paralympic Committee, Swimming Canada is applauding the IPC’s move to ban Russian athletes in Rio.
Twenty two Canadian Para-swimmers will compete in Rio, including Nathan Clement of West Vancouver, and Tyler Mrak of Surrey.
