On Monday, Brian McKeever, a 34-year-old from Canmore, Alta, crossed the finish line first in the men’s visually impaired 20-kilometre race at the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games.
Adding to his other seven Paralympic gold medals, Brian finished the race in 52 minutes and 37.1 seconds with Stanislav Chokhlaev from Russia only 1.16 minutes behind him. Swede Zebastian Modin came in third with a time of 56:34:9.
Using both his of his guides and trainers, Graham Nishikawa and Erik Carleton, McKeever was able to take control of the slow snow conditions created by the warm weather.
While Carleton is McKeever’s childhood buddy, Nishikawa is a member of the National Ski Team who only started working with Brian this fall.
McKeever’s win marks the first gold medal for Canada in this year’s Paralympics but the champion is clearly used to a golden win since the skier won four medals at the last Paralympics which was held in Vancouver four years ago.
With two more races to go at the Sochi Winter Games, McKeever might be able to bring a trio of gold medals back to his home country. This will make the pro the first Canadian Paralympian to bring home over 10 gold medals.
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