Who is Rick Hansen?

Last night, the Olympic torch was lit at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to mark the beginning of the Games. Lighting the torch is one of the biggest honours an athlete can receive in sport and for the months leading up to the opening ceremonies there had been rampant speculation about which Canadian would be chosen. In the end, however, it came down to five: Catroina LeMay-Doane, Nancy Greene, Steve Nash, Wayne Gretzky and Paralympian Rick Hansen. After a technical malfunction, Wayne Gretzky lit the torch to declare the Olympics open.

While many Canadians, especially those of us involved in wheelchair sports, cheered at the sight of Rick Hansen wheeling with the torch into the stadium, people in other nations were baffled. In fact, many news reports left Rick Hansen’s name off newspaper articles about the opening ceremonies entirely. By doing so, the conventional media missed a big story: for the first time in the history of the Olympics, a Paralympian was presented as an equal amongst top Olympians. So, for those of you who haven’t grown up in British Columbia humming the “Man in Motion” theme song, here’s a brief summary of who Rick Hansen is and what he’s done for wheelchair sports.

Rick Hansen was injured in a car accident and became a paraplegic when he was 15. He went on to win 19 international wheelchair marathons, including 6 Paralympic medals. He was also involved in wheelchair basketball, where he played alongside another famous Canadian athlete: Terry Fox. If he’d stuck to athletics, Rick Hansen would still have been known as a great athlete with a disability. Instead, however, he wanted to use his athletic career to remove barriers facing people with disabilities.

On March 21st, 1985, Rick began the “Man in Motion World Tour.” He wheeled more than 40,000 kilometers through 34 countries to raise money for SCI research and challenge the way that people thought about disabilities. By the time the tour was over, Rick Hansen had raised more than $26 million for SCI research and other quality-of-life programs for people with disabilities.

And he hasn’t stopped there. Since then, the Rick Hansen Foundation has raised over $200 million dollars for SCI research and other quality-of-life programs, including wheelchair sports. Rick has also served on many committees such as the Commission for the Inclusion of Athletes with Disabilities and worked to grant athletes with disabilities full medal status at the Commonwealth Games. Rick Hansen and his foundation continue to be strong supporters of wheelchair sports in Canada—in 2000, BC Wheelchair Sports named Rick Hansen the “Athlete of the Century—“ and it’s likely that without this support, we wouldn’t be having the 2010 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships here in BC.

Most people in the wheelchair sports world (myself included) hate the use of the “I word,” since it’s most often used the context of “isn’t it inspirational how those poor disabled people manage to leave their houses and play a sport?” or the headline of “Inspirational Athlete Confined to Wheelchair Leads Normal Life.” It was therefore amazing to see Rick Hansen presented as inspirational in the same way that Wayne Gretzky is inspirational or Nancy Greene is inspirational or Steve Nash is inspirational: because of his accomplishments, not his disability. British Columbia is lucky to have had many talented disabled athletes whose contributions to sport have resonated off the track or the court: Stan Stronge, Duncan Campbell, Marni Abbott-Peter, and many others. It’s people like this who have taken wheelchair rugby from a sport started by 5 guys in Winnipeg in the 1970s and transformed it into one of the most popular and recognizable wheelchair sports.

So congratulations to Rick Hansen for the honour of helping to light the Olympic torch from us here at the 2010 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships. Let’s keep this momentum going through the Paralympics and right into the 2010 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships.

Do you have a story about Rick Hansen or another wheelchair-sports mentor you’d like to share? Email arley@2010wwrc.com and we'll put it on the blog.

For more information on Rick Hansen, visit the Rick Hansen Foundation at www.rickhansen.com