Natalie Wilkie learns to pick up the pieces and go to the podium

CANMORE, Alta. – It’s hard to believe that Natalie Wilkie, Canada’s Para nordic star skier, is entering this Paralympic campaign with some renewed confidence but she is quick to mention a performance late last season as an important step in an already brilliant career.

Canada’s Para nordic skiing head coach Brian McKeever describes Wilkie’s personal growth since the 2022 Beijing Games as ‘’amazing.’’

‘’She’s bounced back from a lot of adversity,’’ said McKeever, Canada’s most successful winter Paralympian with 20 medals, including 16 gold, in Para nordic skiing. ‘’She’s learned to live independently and really developed into one of the performance leaders. You tell her something, she really takes it.

‘’She’s really introspective on those pieces and works on it.’’

To put it into perspective, Wilkie has established herself as one of Canada’s best Paralympians in her two Games appearances and appears primed for another knock-out punch this upcoming March at Milano Cortina.

In 2018 at age 17 and the youngest member on the entire Canadian Paralympic Team, she burst on the international stage with gold, silver, and bronze in women’s standing cross-country events at the PyeongChang Games. That was just a year after she lost four fingers on her left hand in a school workshop accident.

Four years later at the Beijing Games, the one pole racer was on the podium four times with two gold, a silver and bronze in the cross-country events.

Since Beijing, she has continued to dominate in cross country skiing and has established herself as a clear medal threat in Para biathlon. At the 2023 World Championships, Wilkie earned three gold and two silver, which included victories in the 7.5 kilometre sprint and 12.5 kilometre in Para biathlon.

In 2024, the first Para biathlon-specific worlds were held and Wilkie notched gold and silver. In 2025, she competed at three separate worlds. She was a double gold medallist at the Para biathlon worlds, double silver medallist at the Para cross country worlds, and a silver medallist at the World Nordic Skiing Championships which included Para events for the first time.

Last season was a memorable one for Wilkie for reasons you won’t find in those outstanding results.

She says she gained a newfound confidence after an illness disrupted her preparations for the Para biathlon worlds in Slovenia. She then went on to post some of the strongest races of her career.

‘’Those worlds changed my perspective on things,’’ said the 24-year-old from Salmon Arm, B.C. ‘’We had a World Cup the week before and I only managed to do one race due to illness. I was kind of upset because we had spent the entire season prepping for those worlds and when you’re sick you can’t train as well, your body will be in recovery mode for two weeks.

‘’So, I was just forced to trust my training from the entire year and knowing if I played my cards right I could maximize my fitness. And then to win two races, which was so unexpected. It was just such a mental shift for me.

“It’s a great reminder that if I’m having a tough time that I have the ability to pick up the pieces and get the results.’’