Top Sochi athletes, team and coaches celebrated at Canadian Paralympic Committee 2014 Sport Awards Ceremony

Athletes in para-alpine skiing, para-Nordic skiing and wheelchair curling took centre stage today as stars of the Sochi 2014 Canadian Paralympic Team and the broader Canadian Paralympic movement were fêted at the 2014 Canadian Paralympic Sport Awards ceremony. (CNW Group/Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC))

 

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TORONTO, Sept. 19, 2014 /CNW Telbec/ - Athletes in para-alpine skiing, para-Nordic skiing and wheelchair curling took centre stage today as stars of the Sochi 2014 Canadian Paralympic Team and the broader Canadian Paralympic movement were fêted at the 2014 Canadian Paralympic Sport Awards ceremony.

The Paralympic Sport Awards celebrate top athletes, recognizing their achievements from the most recent Paralympic Games, in addition to honouring and recognizing the contribution of coaches.
"There were so many outstanding performances in Sochi and plenty of deserving athletes and coaches for these awards," said Gaétan Tardif, President of the Canadian Paralympic Committee. "I'd like to congratulate today's recipients as well as the entire Canadian Paralympic Team for an outstanding performance in Sochi."

The Canadian Paralympic Team placed third in the gold medal count in Sochi with 16 medals – seven gold, two silver and seven bronze.


"The commitment, dedication and spirit shown by our athletes in Sochi are an inspiration to all Canadians," said the Honourable Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport). "We are proud to support the Canadian Paralympic Team and celebrate its remarkable achievements."
The 2014 Sport Award recipients are:

• Best Games Debut: para-alpine skiers Mac Marcoux (Sault-Ste-Marie, Ont.) and guide Robin Fémy (Mont-Tremblant, Que.) blazed to a brilliant debut in Sochi, winning one gold and two bronze medals in visually-impaired para-alpine skiing; Marcoux was just 16 years old.
• Best Team Performance: The Canadian Wheelchair Curling Team won its third straight Paralympic Games gold medal with their win in Sochi, setting records along the way for most points and largest margin of victory.
• Best Male Athlete: Brian McKeever (Canmore, Alta.) and guides Erik Carleton (Canmore, Alta.) and Graham Nishikawa (Whitehorse, Yukon) combined to win three gold medals in visually-impaired para-Nordic skiing in Sochi; McKeever was Canada's most decorated athlete at these Games.
• Best Female Athlete: Two-time Paralympian wheelchair curler Ina Forrest (Armstrong, B.C.) used her trademark accuracy and mental focus in her position as Second to help Canada win the wheelchair curling gold medal in Sochi. Forrest also won wheelchair curling Paralympic gold in Vancouver 2010.
• Para-Development Coach: Teacher Mari Ellery (Toronto, Ont.) has been coaching parasport for over 30 years; her work at the development level in para-canoe has translated in to national and international success for several of her athletes.
• Tim Frick Paralympic Coach Excellence: Head coach of the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team, Jean Sébastien Labrie (Plessisville, Que.) built a strong culture of performance on the team and guided his squad to eight medals in Sochi, representing half of Canada's total medal haul at the Games.

 
Biographies and photos of Sport Awards recipients are available here: http://paralympic.ca/2014-sport-awards-recipients
Videos of each recipient can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/CDNParalympics
FLASH QUOTES

I'd like to thank my brother BJ [Mac's original para-alpine ski guide, who could not race in Sochi due to injury]. It's been a long road and we brought ourselves here and I'd also like to thank Rob [guide Robin Fémy]. If it weren't for Rob, we wouldn't be standing here today. It's pretty awesome.
- Mac Marcoux –Best Games Debut with guide Robin Fémy

I get the prize today, but it's more like a team prize. BJ, Mac's brother, brought him all the way here. He unfortunately injured himself before the Games, so I had to step in. I'm the one that competed, but this one goes to BJ too.


- Guide Robin Fémy - Best Games debut with Mac Marcoux
This really is more of a team award. Although it ultimately comes down to throwing the rock, there is a lot of team effort that goes in to it before that happens. I have tremendous teammates and staff, and everything is there to make the athletes play the very best they can be.
- Ina Forrest - Best Female Athlete award

Sochi was a great experience. Our whole team came together really strongly, everybody did a great job, from coaching and support staff wax techs, everybody raised their level. The fact that we had two excellent guides certainly made my job much easier. I know they're going to give me their best. It's a team effort as opposed to individual, so this award is more about coaches, our wax techs and our guides than it is about me.

- Brian McKeever – Best Male Athlete with guides Erik Carleton and Graham Nishikawa
This truly is a pleasure and a real honour. Wheelchair curling has only been around 14, 15 years but we have been well adopted by the Canadian Curling Association and all the sponsors. We've developed a presence that far exceeds our numbers in the way we've been embraced by the curling community and the community at large. It's been a thrill. Here's hoping there's enough tread on these wheels to last another four years.

- Jim Armstrong - Best Team Performance: The Canadian Wheelchair Curling Team
It's a real honour to receive this, especially for the team. In alpine ski racing, it takes a lot of people behind the team to help them perform. I would like to share this award with the four coaches we worked together especially the two years leading to Sochi. I'd like Sven Pouliot, Lasse Ericsson and Jocelyn Huot to share in this beautiful moment.

- Jean Sébastien Labrie Head coach of the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team - Tim Frick Paralympic Coach Excellence award

I started coaching parasport at Variety Village, coaching track and field. That's where my love of coaching was fuelled. We do this for the athletes. It's all about them. As coaches we share the same commitment and passion in creating sport opportunities for athletes with a disability. We try to inspire each athlete to be the best they can be.

- Mari Ellery - Para-Development Coach award

About the Canadian Paralympic Committee

The Canadian Paralympic Committee is a non-profit, private organization with 25 member sports organizations dedicated to strengthening the Paralympic Movement. The Canadian Paralympic Committee's vision is to be the world's leading Paralympic nation. Its mission is to lead the development of a sustainable Paralympic sport system in Canada to enable athletes to reach the podium at the Paralympic Games. By supporting Canadian high performance athletes with a disability and promoting their success, the Canadian Paralympic Committee inspires all Canadians with a disability to get involved in sport through programs delivered by its member organizations. For more information, visit www.paralympic.ca
 
SOURCE Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC)

Training To Extremes - Exercise Addiction and the Importance of Rest Days

Training To Extremes - Exercise Addiction and the Importance of Rest Days

Many wheelchair users, particularly if they are athletes who need to keep themselves in top physical condition for sports like curling, can take their fitness regimes to unhealthy extremes if not careful. While fitness and the preservation of muscle tone is vital if you want to stay at the top of their game, there is a growing tendency for people to overdo it. This is particularly pertinent for wheelchair users, who often (erroneously) believe that they need to work twice as hard as an athlete without a wheelchair in order to gain a physique capable of playing sports like curling. For some, exercise and fitness can become an overriding obsession, which – far from bringing body and mind into peak condition – has an extremely detrimental effect upon both. An association called ‘ABIDE’, which studies and combats issues people have with body image has spoken with concern about the growing trend for people to attempt to control their bodies and define themselves through the sport they play, and the exercise they do to aid that sport. Of course, any sportsperson naturally takes a pride in their team, their involvement in the sport, and their athletic ability – but when taken too far it can have a seriously negative effect. ‘Exercise Addiction’ is a growing problem, and one which has claimed the career of many a promising curler.

Rest And Fitness

Everybody, from academic human biologists to experienced personal trainers at gyms agree that, while exercise is an absolutely vital part of the fitness process, its effects are processed during the body during rest-hours. Exercise involves the stretching and contracting of the muscles, which causes micro-tears in the protein strands from which the muscles are formed. When healing these tears, the body takes care to increase the density of the protein strands to in order to decrease the likelihood of such injury happening again. In so doing, of course, it also metabolize fat to ease the process. Thus muscle mass grows, and the body becomes leaner, trimmer, and fitter. However, this only occurs during times of rest. Similarly, when exercising the brain takes in a lot of information regarding what it is being asked to do, and how it is achieving this – what works, what does not work, and how performance can be improved. This information it stores, ready to go through, arrange to its satisfaction, and learn from at a more convenient moment – i.e. when you are at rest. The implications are astonishingly clear – without adequate rest, not only will your body be unable to replenish and improve its physical condition, your brain will lack the opportunity to develop the kind of motor skills and reflexes which are especially vital for a sport like wheelchair curling. Most fitness gurus and authors recommend at least one day of rest between particularly strenuous workouts - during which the athlete should try to obtain massages, take in plenty of nutrients, and sleep as long and well as they can in order to aid the fitness process.

Exercise Addiction

If the notion of taking a rest day is troubling to you, however, it may be a sign that you are overtraining, and becoming dependent upon or even addicted to exercise. This is a troubling syndrome which is still but poorly understood by science and psychiatry – but reports suggest that it is on the rise. Nobody is entirely sure what causes it. Some suggest that the ‘natural high’ caused by exercise triggers opioid receptors in the brain – a reaction  to which excessive exercisers may become addicted, just as they would to substances like heroin which cause the brain to react in similar ways. Others argue that there is insufficient evidence for this. Some researchers and psychiatric professionals point instead to body image issues and feelings of potential inadequacy – exercise may be seen by the suffering individual as a means of self-improvement or validation, and may be undertaken excessively and compulsively in order to offset perceived bodily imperfections. Wheelchair users may be particularly vulnerable to body-image issues, putting wheelchair athletes and fitness aficionados at risk of developing an exercise dependency.

Symptoms of Overtraining

It is hard to categorize an exercise addiction. One particularly pertinent warning sign is if the individual in question seems to find a lack of exercise extremely stressful, yet does not seem particularly fulfilled by the exercise itself. Addicts may also have perpetually sore muscles, their physical performance will decrease, and, contradictory though it may seem, they might put on weight as their body attempts to protect itself from the exercise onslaught. Similarly, muscle mass may actually diminish as muscles are worn away by overuse and a lack of time to replenish. Exercise addicts will appear drained, and may well find themselves vulnerable to all kinds of bugs and infections as their body sucks resources from the immune system in order to keep itself going. If this sounds familiar – then treat yourself to a rest day. A good rule of thumb is to take one rest day for every two high-intensity training sessions. Your body, your mind, and your sport will all thank you for it! 

Submitted by Imogen