Weekly round-up: Canada’s Para athletes share their pandemic experiences

Even though Canada’s Paralympians are not able to compete right now, or train at their normal pace, they are still keeping themselves busy whether it’s doing at-home workouts, virtual chatting with friends and family, or sharing their stories in the news and on social media. Each week, we’ll compile a few social posts and articles to see what Canadian Para athletes have been up to. Here are just a few highlights from the past week: 

Canadian Para athletes showed how they #playfromhome with their kids and how they are keeping in shape during the pandemic. Featured athletes included Chelsey Gotell, Josh Dueck and Andrew Haley, and here Gotell resourcefully uses her daughter as a weight.

— Chelsey Gotell (@ChelsGotell) May 2, 2020

Team Canada Champion Chats is now hosting a weekly live chat with Paralympians and Olympians sharing their tips and advice for families and students. Olympic diver Alexandre Despatie hosted last week’s episode, alongside guests Erin Latimer, a two-time Paralympic alpine skier, and Beijing 2008 Olympian Jeane Lassen (weightlifting). They chatted about their experiences in the pandemic and showed us some moves! 

Cindy Ouellet sat down with CBC Sports to re-live Canada’s big 2014 wheelchair basketball world championships victory, as well as chat about her career and preparations for the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Ouellet’s teammate on the women’s national wheelchair basketball team, Erica Gavel, was also featured on CBCSports.ca in a story about completing her masters thesis and representing Canada on the world stage in the same year.

— CBC Sports (@cbcsports) April 29, 2020

Saskatoon-based Para swimmers Shelby Newkirk and Nikita Ens shared with Global News how the COVID-19 barrier is just another challenge to meet head-on and how they are staying active with the pools closed. 

— Global Saskatoon (@GlobalSaskatoon) April 29, 2020

Para triathete Jessica Tuomela penned an article for CBC about her life in isolation while training for the next Paralympic Games.

— Jessica Tuomela (@JessicaTuomela) April 29, 2020

Boccia player Alison Levine was featured on Montreal CityNews about this year’s edition of the Défi Sportif AlterGo moving online due the COVID-19 pandemic. The Montreal event normally brings together thousands of athletes with a disability but this year it’s being held through virtual panel-like conferences and competitions. 

The Défi sportif AlterGo has had to move online due the #COVID-19 pandemic. @MelinaCityNews pic.twitter.com/XJEEHEvVnd

— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) May 1, 2020