After world title, Para ice hockey’s Vincent Boily conquers Kilimanjaro

It has been quite a remarkable year for Vincent Boily.

First, the 24-year-old Para ice hockey player from Alma, Que. won gold at the world championships in May in Calgary alongside his teammates.

Then last month, using his arm crutches Boily tackled the highest peak on the African continent: Mount Kilimanjaro. On July 28, after a 90 kilometre seven-day climb he stood atop the 5,895 metre colossus. He did the journey solo and was accompanied only by 10 other tourist climbers. Four of them did not finish.

Boily was raising funds for the Fondation moelle épinière et motricité Québec.

“The day we reached the summit, was the toughest of my life,’’ Boily told the Journal de Montréal. ‘’It took everything I had with the altitude and the fatigue. I overcame some big obstacles and pushed myself to my limits. But resilience is part of my reality today.’’

In December 2017, Boily was injured in a snowmobile accident in the Lac-St-Jean region. At the time he was playing AAA Midget hockey with the St-Eustache Vikings. One of his first forays into Para sport was to attend the Canadian Paralympic Committee Paralympian Search in June 2018.

Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano in Tanzania and the fourth most topographically prominent peak on Earth. It is part of Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major hiking and climbing destination.