By Dan Plouffe
On top of the athletes, there are many, many coaches, officials and staff headed to the Paralympic Games from the nation’s capital.
She didn’t make it the Games as an athlete herself, but Ottawa-born Janice Dawson is now going as the head coach of the Canadian women’s goalball team.
Having moved to Calgary to train at the Olympic oval in speed skating – where she once beat Catriona Lemay Doan, “my one claim to fame,” she laughs – Dawson’s career in goalball started with a simple invitation from a friend to help her out with the Alberta women’s team.
Now her full-time job, Dawson says the feeling of going to a Paralympics is just as an exciting for a coach.
“It’s pretty amazing,” says the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic coaching veteran. “The Opening Ceremonies is an amazing thing to walk into a stadium full of 80,000 people yelling and screaming. It’s awesome.
“It’s awesome to be able to represent your country and work with a great group of athletes. It’s like a dream job for me.”
With many national sports organizations calling Ottawa home, there is a plethora of support staff headed to the London Games from the nation’s capital as well.
Some of the coaches from Ottawa include para-athletics coaches Hugh Conlin and Ian Clark, shooting coach Rick Ward, and rowing coach Jeff Dunbrack. Former Olympic rower Alison Korn is the Canadian Paralympic Committee’s manager of media relations.