A golden rest
October 4, 2004
By Cam Tait
EDMONTON, AB // Ross Norton says he isn't tired. But just listening to his schedule since last November would make anyone drowsy.
It's Saturday afternoon and Norton, 31, is lunching - soup and sandwich, thank you, with a glass of water. A brand new Paralympic gold medal sits on his right. He's a member of the Canadian wheelchair basketball team, which dominated tournament play at the Athens Paralympics with a 5-0 record. On September 28th, the Canucks easily handled Australia 70-53 to capture the gold and rewrite the history book.
The Canadians are the first men's wheelchair basketball team to win back-to-back Paralympic gold medals. Our women have three consecutive Paralympic golds. Unfortunately, the Canadian women had to settle for bronze this time around.
Norton returned to Edmonton on Thursday night, six hours late. The entire
Canadian Paralympic team was on a flight from Athens to Toronto. With
more than 60 athletes - many of whom are wheelchair users - it took
close to an hour to board the aircraft. Then it took the same amount
of time to deboard when they arrived in Toronto.
"I knew I missed my connecting flight even before I landed," Norton says.
Being in the air is something the Calgary native is used to. Norton was also on the 2000 Canadian wheelchair basketball team. He's been training and competing at the highest level in the world for the last eight years. And it's a gruelling schedule: starting with a training camp last November in Toronto; tournaments in Argentina, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and Vancouver; then hosting two tourneys in Toronto before jetting to Athens.
"I get really homesick," he says. "But I guess that's what it takes to be successful."
Norton says Canada has been lucky to keep the same team together for eight years. Only three rookies broke the line-up for the Athens team. Clearly, they were on a mission - in 2002, the defending Paralympic champions ended up third at the world championships.
"Being on top of the world in wheelchair basketball is something we could not live without," Norton says. "Many of us want to go to the 2006 world championships and prove a point."
After attending Red Deer College, Norton moved to Edmonton in the mid-1990s to play for the Alberta Northern Lights. He's not a high-scorer, he says - shooting six or eight points a game - but it's his chair skills that make him a world class player. His specialty is stopping opponents from getting to the Canadian shooter.
Norton started playing wheelchair basketball in 1988 after a tumour attacked his spinal cord, making him a paraplegic. He currently works for the Royal Bank and is very grateful to his employer for giving him time off to train and compete.
"I think I'm going to take the next month off," says Norton. The wheelchair basketball season is here and he'll suit up for the Alberta Northern Lights. He'd like to play another six years, and perhaps end his career at the 2010 World Cup.
That's because there are other things in Norton's life now. He was married
on August 21st and his bride was in Athens when he was presented with
his gold medal.
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