Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Marissa Tiel

HUGE HONOUR – Tonight Stephanie Dixon will be inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, a big honour for Canadian athletes. The 19-time Paralympic medallist will be joined by a football player, the founder of Special Olympics, a crosscountry skiier and paddler, a curler, a speedskater, and a hockey player.

Huge honour for Paralympian Stephanie Dixon

She jumps into the water of lane four at the Water Cube – Beijing’s National Aquatic Centre – for the Paralympic S8 100-metre backstroke final at the 2008 Paralympics.

By Marissa Tiel on November 1, 2016

19-time Paralympic medallist to be inducted into Canada’s Sport Hall of Fame tonight

She jumps into the water of lane four at the Water Cube – Beijing’s National Aquatic Centre – for the Paralympic S8 100-metre backstroke final at the 2008 Paralympics.

Stephanie Dixon, the reigning world record-holder in the event, grips the starting block with both her hands and places her left foot high on the wall.

The eight swimmers from across the world are prompted to take their marks. Their bodies tense, waiting to explode off the wall.

The starting beep sounds, the Water Cube fills with cheers, muted as Dixon fires off the wall, dolphin-kicking and humming to keep water out of her nose.

She emerges second from the water, arms windmilling in complete unison. 

Approaching the wall, she is a head in front of Britain’s Stephanie Millward next to her in lane five.

Dixon glides into the wall, flip turns and pushes off for the backstretch of the race.

She comes out of her streamline position a body-length in front. The architectural bubbles on the ceiling as her sight line, she continues to lengthen her lead over the final 50 metres.

Dixon touches the wall, craning her neck to see the clock: one minute nine seconds and 30 milliseconds.

A smile spreads across her face as she breathes in “O”s. She has broken her world record by 0.31 seconds and has won her seventh Paralympic gold medal.

At her final Paralympic appearance, after her debut at 16 in Sydney at the 2000 Paralympic Summer Games with five gold, two silver and five world records; her sophomore Games in Athens with one gold, six silver, one bronze and one world record; and the Beijing Games with one gold, two silver and one bronze, she amassed 19 medals over three Paralympics.

In the two years after her final Paralympic performance, Dixon kept swimming. She wanted to remind herself why she loved the sport.

She travelled abroad for some training camps, including Australia and Spain.

“I knew I was done after (the) 2008 Paralympic Games but I went on for two more years just to remember why I loved it and to end on a positive note,” Dixon said.

In 2010 she retired. Four of her world records still stand today. Three of them in her best stroke, backstroke.

Tonight Dixon will be recognized for her illustrious swimming career and for her contributions to the sporting community.

During a ceremony at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, she and six others will be officially inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

The ceremony will be emceed by Canadian comedian and actor Martin Short, and will include a musical performance by The Barenaked Ladies.

“I’m actually pretty nervous about walking up on the stage because I don’t think I’m going to be able to hold it together,” she said from her Whitehorse home. “It already is, just thinking about it, very emotional. I’m very proud and very grateful.”

The Class of 2016 also includes footballer Michael “Pinball” Clemons who helped the Toronto Argonauts to the Grey Cup four times; curler Colleen Jones, a two-time world champion and the youngest skip to ever win a Canadian women’s championship; Annie Perreault, a three-time Olympian and double Olympic gold medallist for speed skating; Sue Holloway, a four-time Olympian and the first woman to represent Canada at both the Summer (canoe-kayak) and Winter (cross-country skiing) Olympic Games in the same year; hockey player Bryan Trottier, a seven-time Stanley Cup winner; and Dr. Frank Hayden, the creator of the worldwide Special Olympics Movement.

“It’s such an incredible opportunity to get to know these six individuals and we’ve kind of become a little family to share our story about sport and retirement and life in general.”

Born without a right hip or right leg, Dixon lived an empowered life, supported by her family, which involved a lot of sports.

At the age of two, she was put into the swimming pool.

“As long as I can remember swimming has been a huge part of my life,” said Dixon. “Just loving being in the pool. All my favourite memories of being a kid are swimming, being in a pool, challenging myself trying to learn new techniques and new stokes. My happiest memories.”

This summer, Dixon penned an op-ed for CBC in which she describes her personal journey.

She writes about her first swimming lessons, just over a year after being outfitted with a prosthetic leg.

“Something magical happened,” she wrote in the September 7 online “Players’ Own Voice” column. “Feeling more like a mermaid than a person, I was free – physically, from my prosthetic leg and emotionally, from any kind of imposed limitations or judgements.

“The water doesn’t judge you, feel sorry for you, or give you an easier time because you have a disability – things I experience every single day. I was free to be me.”

A gifted athlete, Dixon worked hard and began swimming competitively. At 13, even though she disliked being labelled as different, she began competing in para categories.

“It was really tough for me because my whole life I wanted to prove that my disability didn’t hold me back from anything and I could do anything that anyone else did,” said Dixon. “When I went to my first competition as a para athlete, meeting other athletes with disability, I just found a sense of camaraderie with the other athletes.

“I realized it wasn’t a category because people felt sorry for me or didn’t realize what I was able to do, it was just levelling the playing field.

At 16 she stood on the Paralympic podium for the first time at the 2000 Games as the Canadian national anthem played. A gold medal weighed at her neck as tears streamed down her face.

Her elation was short-lived as she returned home to Ontario and had to explain what the Paralympics were to her classmates.

Instead of being instilled with joy at her accomplishments, she retreated behind her prosthetic leg.

“Suddenly the feelings of freedom turned and empowerment I felt in the water turned into embarrassment and shame,” she wrote. “I became mortified at the thought of everyone seeing my mis-shapen body so I refused to go to school without my prosthetic leg and didn’t talk about my Paralympic (s)uccess.”

She continued to train with her teammates towards the next Olympics, but was still fighting prejudice, even if it was accidental.

Comments meant as compliments she heard as underhanded insults.

“I often heard from non-swimmers, ‘I bet you could even swim faster than me!’,” she wrote. “I would always just smile back but in my head I would be thinking, ‘Are you f’ing kidding me?’”

In university, she joined the varsity swim team and in her first year with the University of Victoria Vikes, she swam to a 15th place finish against swimmers with two legs.

She was named an honourary CIS First Team All-Canadian as the first S9 level athlete to qualify for CIS nationals under able-bodied standards.

“The first time I saw her in the water the thing I was most impressed about we started doing some backstroke, which is her best stroke and she was beating most of my male swimmers off the wall with her underwater kicking,”said UVic swimming coach Peter Vizsolyi when Dixon was inducted into the UVic Sports Hall of Fame earlier this year. “So that was really exciting that she was that good and also a teaching opportunity for some of them.”

She would go on to smash more world records and win more medals before retiring from competitive sport in 2010.

Dixon moved to Whitehorse that year to spend her retirement and soon joined the Glacier Bears as their head coach for two seasons.

Now, the 32-year old coaches the Graylings Swim Club, the masters program and works as a personal trainer.

The accolades continue to pour in for Dixon. This year alone she has been named to the University of Victoria Sports Hall of Fame and the Canada Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2013 she was inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame.

Dixon continues to find balance in her life.

“Coaching is my passion. I think that one of the best ways to learn is by coaching because it forces you to be so creative and think about things in a different way and a different perspective, so I feel I’ve improved as an athlete and just in my life in general by coaching.”

Comments (2)

Up 3 Down 0

Great work for the Yukon on Nov 2, 2016 at 1:37 pm

You are a true roll model for greatness and all Yukoners are proud of what you have accomplished.

Wilf Carter

Up 7 Down 0

Matt on Nov 1, 2016 at 6:50 pm

BAM!! That's how it's done kids! Congrats!

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