First Winter Athlete to Compete in Both Olympics and Paralympics Heads to Vancouver

By Brandon Penny — 1/23/10
Canadian Brian McKeever has made history. He has been selected as a member of both Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic cross-country ski teams.
Thirty-year-old McKeever is legally blind. When he was 18 years old he lost 90% of his vision because of Stargardt’s disease. That is the most common form of juvenile macular degeneration. McKeever inherited the disease from his father and grandfather.
In December at the trials McKeever met the Canadian Olympic team criteria by winning a 50km race. This will be McKeever’s first Olympics, but he is no stranger to the Paralympics. His first Paralympic appearance came 8 years ago when he won two golds and a silver in cross-country and a bronze in biathlon. He then repeated his accomplishments four years later in Torino, winning two golds and a silver in cross-country.
When he competes in the Paralympics, McKeever will be able to use his brother Robin, a 1998 Olympian, as a guide. In the Olympics, he’ll be skiing solo, following the blurry shapes around him.
McKeever will race the 50km at the Olympics on February 28th, and is hoping to get into a 15km on the 15th. He plans to compete in all five of the Paralympic events for the visually impaired – 5km, 10km, and 20km in cross-country, and 7.5km and 12.5km biathlon. The Paralympics start March 12th.
Five athletes have competed in the Olympics and Paralympics before, but they are all summer sport athletes. Those athletes are South African swimmer Natalie du Toit (amputee), American runner Marla Runyan (visually impaired), Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka (born without right hand and forearm), Italian archer Paola Fantato (polio), and New Zealand archer Neroli Susan Fairhall (paraplegic).