Courtenay’s Byron Green is one of 162 Canadian athletes (and one of 33 from British Columbia) who will be competing in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, to be held Sept. 7-18.
Green is with the national wheelchair rugby team which will be in action Sept. 14-18. Canada opens against Brazil on Sept. 14, faces Great Britain on Sept. 15 and concludes preliminary round play Sept. 16 against Australia. Playoffs go Sept. 17-18.
Australia is the reigning Paralympic champion, having defeated Canada 66-51 at London 2012. Australia and Canada are currently ranked second and fourth in the world, respectively. Great Britain is #5 and Brazil #19. The other four-team pool includes #1 USA, #3 Japan, #6 Sweden and #7 France.
Green won gold with Team Canada at the 2015 Toronto Parapan Ams and was with the Canadian team that won the 2015 World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge.
Green, a civil engineer now living in Vancouver, told The Record in an earlier interview that he is looking forward to making his Paralympic Games debut.
“I think it’s going to be a very competitive Paralympics for wheelchair rugby. There’s five teams that really anything can happen sort of thing. It’s the most competitive group of teams we’ve seen since wheelchair rugby joined the Paralympics,” he said.
The 12-person Canadian team will hold a staging camp in London, Ont. in early September then fly from Toronto to Rio in time to catch the opening ceremonies, settle into the athletes’ village and focus on the task that lies ahead.
Team Canada
Team Canada is led by Chef de Mission Chantal Petitclerc of Montreal. "Congratulations to this entire group of dedicated, world-class athletes and coaches who have worked relentlessly to earn the honour of representing Canada in Rio," said Petitclerc.
"I know that our Canadian contingent is prepared, focused and ready to take on the challenge of Team Canada's performance goal of placing in the top 16 nations in the total medal count."
Team Canada's oldest athlete is 59-year-old table tennis player Stephanie Chan (Vancouver) while the youngest athlete is 13-year-old swimmer Danielle Doris (Moncton).
The most accomplished athlete is swimmer Benoit Huot, with 19 Paralympic medals. The Rio-bound athlete who has competed at the most Paralympic Games is wheelchair basketball player Tracey Ferguson, for whom Rio will be her seventh Paralympic Games.
The complete list (officially announced Aug. 29) of Canadian athletes and coaches heading to Rio is at paralympic.ca/team-canada-rio-2016.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee Media Consortium will bring unprecedented broadcast and digital coverage of the Paralympic Games. The broadcast schedule will be posted shortly at paralympic.ca/watch-team-canada.
CBC/Radio-Canada will be Canada's home for daily coverage from the Opening Ceremony on Sept. 7 through to the Closing Ceremony on Sept. 18.
CBC's digital platforms will provide daily live coverage with up to 11 simultaneous live streaming feeds for viewers to choose from across cbcsports.ca/paralympics and via the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices. Television coverage will be available daily via CBC, Sportsnet ONE and AMI-tv.
In total, CBC/Radio-Canada and its partners will provide more than 700 hours of coverage of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games - more than has ever been made available before in Canada for a Paralympic Games.
About Rio 2016
According to the International Paralympic Committee, up to 4,350 athletes from 161 countries plus a refugee team will travel to Rio to compete in 22 sports; at London 2012, the total was 4,237 athletes from 167 countries competing in 20 sports
For more on the Canadian Paralympic Committee visit www.paralympic.ca.
Team Canada athletes by province: British Columbia 33, Alberta 19, Saskatchewan 6, Manitoba 2, Ontario 49, Quebec 41, New Brunswick 3, Nova Scotia 5, Newfoundland and Labrador 3, outside Canada 1.