The team that will compete for Canada in athletics at the Paralympic Games in Rio just after the Olympics will be announced Aug. 24 and a familiar face is expected to be part of that group.
Parksville’s Michelle Stilwell already has four Paralympics gold medals and open silver. She is the world record holder in her classification in all three of the 100M, 200M and 800M.
Much of Canada’s Paralympics team has been announced, but athletics (track and field) will wait until Aug. 24 to officially name the team.
Stilwell, currently the MLA for Parksville-Qualicum and the B.C. government’s Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation, first competed at the Paralympics in Sydney, Australia in 2000, where she was the only female member of the Canadian team that won gold in wheelchair basketball. In fact, she was the only female in the basketball event that year. In Beijing in 2008, Stilwell won gold in both the 100M and 200M T52 wheelchair racing events. She won gold again in the 200M in London in 2012, silver in the 100M.
Stilwell, 42, is the only female Paralympic athlete to have ever won gold in two separate summer sport events.
