Three years later, at the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, she was the only Canadian woman competing in the new snowboard cross event. “I didn’t know a lot about the Paralympics, but I knew they existed and here was my opportunity,” Salt says. That’s one sign of how competitive para sport has become — not just in Canada, but internationally — one year out from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics. He recalls the late 1990s, when someone who was athletic and hurt in an accident could recover, train and compete internationally in a para sport within a few months. “When I started walking and realizing how hard it actually was to be an amputee, I thought: I need to embrace this.

Source: thestar March 08, 2017 22:55 UTC