BC Athletics will be presenting Dr. Taunton the award on Saturday, December 3 during an award ceremony in Richmond, B.C.

“This award is a tremendous honour,” says Dr. Taunton, who served as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games and was responsible for basic and emergency health care and doping control.

“It’s truly a case of a hobby going wild with an initial running career that led to starting up a sports medicine clinic with my partner Dr. Doug Clement and then my endeavours at UBC. It has been a great run.”

At age 64, Taunton has completed 62 marathons with a best performance of 2:25:29 and countless road races. He continues to run and race, cycle and cross-country ski.

Co-founder of the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre, Taunton maintains an active sports medicine practice. He works with distance runners, cyclists, triathletes and others as doctor and coach.

Taunton teaches sports medicine in the Dept. of Family Practice, Faculty of Medicine and at the School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Education. He conducts clinical and exercise medicine research with a focus on overuse injuries and injury prevention as well as exercise and the elderly.

Taunton’s career highlights include CMO appointments for the Canadian teams at the Sydney Olympics, two Pan American Games and two World Student Games.  He was team physician and association coordinating physician for the women’s Field Hockey Canada team for more than 25 years, and served as team physician for the Vancouver Gizzlies, Vancouver Canucks and Vancouver Whitecaps.

‘None of my sports medicine contributions would have been possible without the support from UBC Faculty of Medicine, the School of Kinesiology and the team at the Allan McGavin Sports Med Clinic,” says Taunton.

Taunton was attracted to medicine after suffering from polio as a child and a severe car accident as a teen. To strengthen his body and his passion for fitness, Taunton took up running. In 1971, he co-founded B.C.’s first road running club, Lions Gate Road Runners, which celebrated its 40th anniversary. That same year, Taunton was a founding member of the Vancouver International Marathon. With Doug and Diane Clement, Taunton helped to found the Vancouver Sun Run in 1985.

BC Athletics is the provincial member of the non-profit amateur sport organization Athletics Canada. It aims to promote the widest participation and highest proficiency in sports such as track and field, road running, marathons and cross country/trail. For more information, visit:
http://bcathletics.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/2011-bc-athletics-annual-awards-2011-hall-of-fame-inductee-announced/

To read more about Dr. Taunton, visit: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2008/08jul03/dream.html

“UBC is delighted to host such extraordinary athletes on our campus and is committed to helping make these Games a success for both the competitors and the organizers,” said Stephen Owen, Vice President, External, Legal and Community Relations. “As a university, we are uniquely positioned to support the Games competition and contribute to public dialogue related to sport, inclusion and disability.”

UBC is working with Special Olympics Canada to create a multi-venue plan to support the delivery of the events. The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre will host the opening and closing ceremonies, while residence facilities will serve as the Athlete’s Village to accommodate up to 1,800 athletes, coaches and officials from across Canada.

“UBC offers many qualities that will contribute to our success,” said Dan Howe, President and CEO, Special Olympics BC. “They have shown they can provide excellent facilities and strong volunteer support from their community, and they can also stimulate discussion and awareness about issues that are important to athletes with an intellectual disability and their families.”

This is the second time that UBC has been a host venue for the Special Olympics Canada Summer Games – the first was in 1990.  UBC served as a host venue for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games men’s and women’s ice hockey, and Paralympic sledge hockey.

“The Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games provided our team with insight into hosting large-scale competitions, and we’re hoping to bring that talent and knowledge to contribute to the success of these Games,” said Michelle Aucoin, Managing Director of Community Engagement and past Director of the UBC Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat.  “The Special Olympic Canada Summer Games creates an opportunity to profile our world-class venues, to contribute to delivering the Games, and to inspire an academic and community dialogue.”

The 2014 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games is the premier national sporting event for Canadian Special Olympics athletes. Athletes competing at the Summer Games events could qualify to represent Canada at the 2015 Special Olympic World Summer Games.

To see the 2014 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games announcement, visit: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-special-olympics-canada-summer-games-heads-to-bc-126699868.html .

Rob VanWynsberghe, UBC Olympic Games Impact Study (OGI)
604.822.3580, rvanwyns@interchange.ubc.ca, www.ogi-ubc.ca

• Social, economic and environmental impacts of the Games
• Two of four OGI reports have been completed. Two more reports are scheduled for late spring 2011 and 2013

“The 2010 Olympics gave Vancouver and Canada a big boost and provided a reason to come together and celebrate,” says VanWynsberghe. “Real legacies take a long time to develop and our research seeks to determine these long-term Games impacts.”

Laura Moss, Chair, Canadian Studies
604.822.4226, mossl@interchange.ubc.ca

• The psychic legacies of the 2010 Games: patriotism, international perceptions of Canada, uniqueness of 2010 Games from other Canadian Olympics, why Canada embraced the Vancouver Games

“One psychic legacy of the Games is the collective memory of Canadians coming together on an unprecedented scale, expressing their patriotism loudly and confidently,” says Moss. “During the Games, the world witnessed a nation that differed from our stereotypes, but in many ways this was simply their perception of Canada catching up to our own.”

Tsur Sommerville, Sauder School of Business
604.822.8343, tsur.somerville@sauder.ubc.ca

• Impacts on real estate, urban economics
• Games’ impact on house prices and construction employment in the years leading up to and after the Olympics in host cities

“We did not find support for the argument of host city backers that the Olympics delivers positive economic benefits, nor of the arguments made by opponents that there is some post-Olympic bust,” says Sommerville. “Our results conclusively demonstrate that while construction employment dramatically increases in the period prior to the Games, house prices are the same as they would be in the absence of the Games.”

James Brander, Sauder School of Business
604.822.8483, james.brander@sauder.ubc.ca

• Economic impacts, business, trade, and sustainability

Tarek Sayed, Faculty of Applied Science, Civil Engineering Dept.
604.822.4379, stayed@civil.ubc.ca

• Sayed’s study of Games’ pedestrian and traffic patterns found that Metro Vancouver achieved a record for sustainable travel

“Our findings provide important insights into transportation planning and behaviour and will be helpful for other agencies planning large-scale events in Vancouver and the Metro region.”

James Tansey, Sauder School of Business
james.tansey@ubc.ca

• Sustainability of the Games
• Tansey helped track and reduce the Games’ carbon footprint

David Anderson, Faculty of Education
604.822.2086, david.anderson@ubc.ca

• Long-term memories as legacies of major international events, visitor experiences

“How have citizens of the city changed one year later? There is a very strange sense of it being back to the pre-games status-quo,” says Anderson. “I suspect what was unleashed in terms of our heightened willingness to engage with our fellow citizens, in the ways we did a year ago, is not gone. We just need an excuse to reignite it.”

Patrick Condon, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
604.822.9291/604.737.4209, patrick.condon@ubc.ca

• Transportation, city planning, sustainability

Joe Weiler, UBC Olympic Studies Research Team
604.822.4246, 604.209.3904, weiler@law.ubc.ca

• 2010 sustainability legacies, Games-related green business development in Vancouver, Aboriginal inclusion, Richmond as a venue city

Arun Mohan, UBC Olympic Studies Research Team
604.822.2048, arunmohan1@hotmail.com

• Mohan, who worked for the CTV Broadcast Consortium, is among the more than 6,000 UBC students who participated in the Games in paid or volunteer positions

“Whenever I think back to February 2010, when the eyes of our country and world were transfixed on our city, I am filled with pride for playing a small part in helping stage a successful Winter Olympics in Vancouver,” says Mohan. “The atmosphere was electric, and it was really exciting to be in the middle of the action.”

The Host City Olympic Transportation Plan Downtown Monitoring Study looked at how people got around during the February 12-28 Winter Games, and compared the findings to previous transportation monitoring efforts conducted by the City of Vancouver and its partners. On an average Olympic Games weekday there were approximately 1.17 million trips into or out of the downtown Vancouver peninsula – close to 44 per cent higher than the pre-Games weekday average of 813,000 person-trips.

Findings show that for almost two thirds, or 61 per cent, of all trips to and from downtown Vancouver, the majority of people took public transit, while others chose to bike or walk. The remaining 39 per cent of trips taken were in automobiles.

“The findings show that local residents and visitors can adjust to travel in a much more sustainable manner than normal,” says UBC Civil Engineering Prof. Tarek Sayed, who conducted the study for the City of Vancouver with transportation engineer Clark Lim of Acuere Consulting and with research support from TransLink and Transport Canada.

“In fact, the total number of automobiles dropped by almost 16 per cent during the Games compared to pre-Games conditions, a remarkable feat considering the 44 per cent increase of total trips during the Games,” says Tarek, a transportation and road safety expert in the Faculty of Applied Science.

Prior to the games, people made just over 350,000 trips per day to and from downtown Vancouver via bike, transit or walking. These sustainable trip modes jumped to over 713,100 trips during the Games while the number of trips by automobile, as both drivers and passengers, remained essentially the same. 

Trips taken by taxi were up by 25 per cent, while truck volumes were reduced by almost 38 per cent, mostly within the mid-day period. City policies seemed to have worked in encouraging trucks to deliver goods during the early mornings as volumes increased by 90 per cent between midnight and 6 a.m., effectively reducing and avoiding congestion during peak and mid-day periods.
Focusing specifically on Games spectator travel to Olympic venues such as ice hockey games or LiveCity events, almost 80 per cent of the travel was by transit, walking, or cycling – the highest sustainable mode share ever to a downtown Vancouver event, including Celebration of Lights, the summer fireworks competitions which typically account for a 60-65 per cent sustainable mode share.

“These findings provide important insights into transportation planning and behaviour and will be helpful for other agencies planning large-scale events in Vancouver and the Metro region,” says Sayed.

The study deployed almost 80 engineering students who surveyed traffic in the field. Over three separate 24-hour periods, the students monitored all people entering or leaving the downtown area by all modes over the course of the Winter Games. As well, the study targeted spectators and participants at downtown Olympic-related venues to further capture their specific travel behaviour and choices. 

“The research allowed students to practice their technical skills in the field, as well as exposing them to some of the social and policy aspects of the study,” says co-author Lim, an expert in transportation planning and policy and a UBC Engineering PhD candidate working with Sayed.

“In fact,” says Lim, “the study is significant in that it ‘raises the policy bar’ of what we can achieve as a region in terms of our sustainable transportation objectives, and how teamwork between government, private sector and citizens is required to meet those goals.”

This monitoring study was part of the legacy of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games to the Host City of Vancouver  and is valuable transportation information for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), the International Olympic Committee and future Organizing Committees for Olympic Games.

UBC researchers conducted a number of studies related to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games including the world’s first Olympic Games Impact (OGI).

To read the full study, visit the City of Vancouver website at: http://vancouver.ca/2010Games/pdf/HostCit%20DowntownMonitoring%20Study-REPORT%203-%20AnalysisDiscussion.pdf

• The impact of the Paralympic Games
• Performance enhancement; boosting
• Biomechanics of wheelchair movement
• Public policy and disability
• The Paralympic experience

The impact of the Paralympic Games

Rob VanWynsberghe, Human Kinetics
Contact UBC Public Affairs: 604.822.6397; 2010.media@ubc.ca

• Lead researcher of the Olympic Games Impact study

Paralympian performance enhancement

Andrei Krassioukov, ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair and Discoveries)
 604.822.6397; krassioukov@icord.org

• Leader of research team studying boosting at the Paralympic Games;  spinal cord injury researcher

Biomechanics of wheelchair movement

Bonnie Sawatzky, Faculty of Medicine
604. 675.8806; bonitas@interchange.ubc.ca

• Shoulder and wrist strain from wheelchair propulsion, wheelchair function, design and technology

Public policy and disability

Tim Stainton, Centre for Inclusion and Citizenship and School of Social Work
604.822.9674 ; timst@interchange.ubc.ca

• Disability supports and policy, attitudinal issues and social issues 

Paralympic Experience

Jennifer Krempien, MSc candidate in human nutrition
Contact UBC Public Affairs: 604.822.6397; 2010.media@ubc.ca 

• Participated in five Paralympic Summer Games in wheelchair basketball

Donovan Tildesley, UBC alumnus, insurance broker and part-owner of two radio stations
Contact UBC Public Affairs: 604.822.6397; 2010.media@ubc.ca

• Participated in three Paralympic summer Games, flag bearer at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics

Visit UBC’s Online 2010 Media Centre – www.ubc.ca/2010media – to connect with UBC 2010 experts and story ideas.

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Read more: http://www.webcommunications.ubc.ca/ubc2010/whats-on/paralympic-torch-relay/

Date/Time: Curator and organizer availabilities
                    10 a.m. – 12 p.m., Tuesday March 9, 2010
_____________________________________________________________________

The University of British Columbia and Kickstart, a community organization dedicated to promoting art and artists with disabilities, present the exhibit Out From Under from Ryerson University’s School of Disability Studies.  The exhibit will be featured at UBC Robson Square from March 9-21 coinciding with the 2010 Paralympic Games as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Media are invited for a tour on Tuesday March 9 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m., to meet Ryerson curators, UBC and Kickstart hosts, and UBC student guides.

The 13-piece art exhibit Out From Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember brings together symbols and everyday items that illuminate the triumphs and struggles in the history of disabled people in Canada.

Items include, for example, a rusty shovel. In the 1950s, institutionalized individuals dug holes in the ground all morning, and then took the afternoon to fill the holes back in. The shovel tells the story of ‘therapeutic’ labour in Canada and, along with the rest of the exhibit, pays tribute to the shame and neglect but also the resilience and survival of disabled Canadians throughout history.

Available during the media tour are:

• Janet Mee, Director, UBC’s Access & Diversity office
•  Melanie Panitch, Director, Ryerson School of Disability Studies
• Kathryn Church, Associate Professor, Ryerson School of Disability Studies
• Catherine Frazee, Professor of Distinction, Ryerson School of Disability Studies and Co-director, Ryerson RBC Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education
• Geoff McMurchy, Artistic Director, Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture
• UBC students guides

“This will be a unique educational experience,” says Janet Mee, director of UBC’s Access & Diversity office.  “People will have a better understanding of the relationship between our history and the experiences of people with disabilities.”

“It is our hope that the stories evoked by these 13 objects in the exhibit will summon new inquiry and remembrance, and build new reciprocity upon contested ground,” says Melanie Panitch, director of Ryerson University’s School of Disability Studies and one of exhibit co-curators.

For more information about the Ryerson University exhibit please visit the Out from Under website at: http://www.ofu.ryerson.ca/media/index.html
_____________________________________________________________________

The University of British Columbia is one of two Paralympic venue sites in Vancouver.  The UBC Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre will host the Games sledge hockey events. UBC researchers are also conducting a number of independent Games-related research projects, including a study on how the Paralympic Games change public attitudes toward disabilities. For more information, visit: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/03/04/paralympics-a-force-for-change/ .  For Paralympics experts and related research stories, visit: www.ubc.ca/2010media

Ryerson University is Canada’s leader in innovative, career-oriented education and a university clearly on the move. With a mission to serve societal need, and a long-standing commitment to engaging its community, Ryerson offers close to 100 undergraduate and graduate programs. Distinctly urban, culturally diverse and inclusive, the university is home to 28,000 students, including 2,000 master’s and PhD students, nearly 2,700 tenured and tenure-track faculty and staff, and more than 130,000 alumni worldwide. Research at Ryerson is on a trajectory of success and growth: externally funded research has doubled in the past four years. The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education is Canada’s leading provider of university-based adult education. For more information, visit www.ryerson.ca

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André Picard, award-winning Globe and Mail public health reporter and Dr. Edward Coyle, Human Performance Laboratory and exercise physiologist for Lance Armstrong, will moderate the discussion.

To view the list of speakers and for more information on the event, visit www.heartandlung.ca/peak.

Date: March 10
Time: 11 a.m. –  5:30 p.m.
Place: The Segal Center, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street
Info: Free admission with advance registration (limited to the first 250)
To register, call 604-806-9853 or email leah.lockhart@hli.ubc.ca.

But Krassioukov isn’t a competitor — he’s an internationally recognized expert in spinal cord injury (SCI) and leader of the only research team to be granted access to the Vancouver Athletes Village during the Games.

Krassioukov and research team members will investigate the controversial practice of “boosting.” Practiced by some individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI), boosting involves intentionally raising blood pressure to stimulate the body’s energy and endurance. Non-athletes with SCI may use boosting to feel more energetic and alert. Paralympic athletes use boosting to win — it can improve performance by up to 15 per cent. Stressing techniques to stimulate parts of the body below the level of the spinal cord injury, and to produce a spike in blood pressure, can range from wearing pressure stockings, to compressing the testicles by sitting on a handful of ball bearings, or blocking a urinary catheter to distend the bladder.

Injury to the spinal cord disrupts control of heart and blood vessels that are normally regulated by the autonomic nervous system, part of the nervous system that provides non-voluntary control to various organs. This disruption — which varies in severity between individuals — means the body cannot properly replenish energy consumed through exercise leading to a drop in peripheral blood flow, sweating, shortness of breath and faintness . This creates significant disadvantages during competition, leading some athletes to use boosting as a drastic measure to correct functions lost through injury.

Besides creating an unfair competitive advantage, boosting is a dangerous practice. The sudden surge in blood pressure typically seen during boosting is known as autonomic dysreflexia and can lead to stroke, heart attack or death. But the International Paralympics Committee (IPC) 1994 ban on boosting has been difficult to enforce.

A physician-scientist at Vancouver Coastal Health’s GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, Krassioukov has studied autonomic functioning in SCI patients for more than 30 years and has collected data from paralympic athletes headed for competition since 2006. During the last five years he has urged the IPC to go beyond the ban to address how differences in autonomic function affect elite athlete performance.

Krassioukov believes that adding autonomic functioning to the athlete classification system that currently measures only motor and sensory functioning will more evenly match competitors and reduce motivation to boost.

“Being allowed to conduct research in the Athletes’ Village is an exciting milestone for me,” says Krassioukov, an associate professor in UBC’s Dept. of Medicine and co-director of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD), part of Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI). “It suggests the IPC will consider how differences in autonomic function create inequities in performance and fuel the risky practice of boosting.”

Autonomic functioning varies between individuals according to the level and severity of their SCI. Currently, athletes with higher-level injury and significant autonomic function impairment compete directly with individuals with lesser impairment. Athletes have used boosting to close the gap.

During the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, expected to draw 650 athletes from more than 40 countries, he plans to test 50 curling and sledge hockey athletes with spinal cord injury in a Cardiovascular Health Education Clinic in the Village and at ICORD. Volunteers will participate in a 90-minute assessment of autonomic functioning, complete a questionnaire and receive educational brochures about autonomic dysreflexia and risks of boosting.

Krassioukov expects it will be at least four years before his team will provide the IPC with possible guidelines on testing of autonomic functioning in paralympic athletes. Additional data from other paralympic sports must be collected and analyzed and recommendations developed and tested. He hopes research advances will ultimately eliminate the need for boosting but accepts that individuals with SCI are always looking for ways to improve their functioning.

“I am amazed by my patients’ incredible tenacity to achieve what they want to do in life — how they not only survive but fully engage in their adventure with a new body.”

Krassioukov’s work is supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada; the Disability Health Research Network; the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation; and the Rick Hansen Foundation.

VCHRI is the research body of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which includes BC’s largest academic and teaching health sciences centres: VGH, UBC Hospital, and GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre. In academic partnership with the University of British Columbia, VCHRI brings innovation and discovery to patient care, advancing healthier lives in healthy communities across British Columbia, Canada, and beyond. www.vchri.ca.

“In the last decade Games organizing committees have also put together Paralympics Games and this model may have helped raise awareness surrounding disability issues,” says Prof. Rob VanWynsberghe, who leads the UBC OGI Project Group.

For the Sydney Australia Paralympic Games in 2000, the International Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee agreed to a set of shared principles and a further agreement in 2001 protected the organization of the Paralympic Games and secured the practice of “one bid, one city.”

The online survey of more than 1,600 Canadians was conducted in December 2009 to measure changes in public and personal awareness and attitudes since the Olympic/Paralympic Games were awarded to Vancouver/Whistler in 2003. The survey is part of the first-ever comprehensive OGI study which VANOC has commissioned to evaluate and compare various pre-and post-Games impacts.

Results showed 41-50 per cent of respondents felt the Games triggered additional accessibility of buildings, sidewalks and public spaces as well as specialized programs and training for athletes with disabilities and government support for disabled individuals.

Also, 32-40 per cent of respondents believed both the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games increased their knowledge of sports for people with disabilities and their overall acceptance of people with disabilities. Among employers, about one-quarter said their willingness to hire people with disabilities has gone up due to the Games.

“This is very positive because employment rates among people with disabilities are much lower than among the general population, and attitudes of employers constitute a major barrier to employment of people with disabilities,” says Lyn Jongbloed, associate professor of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Not involved in the OGI research, she comments from her perspective as a therapist who has worked with spinal cord injury and stroke patients and as a researcher interested in the interrelationship between disability and the social, economic and political environment.

The OGI survey found B.C. residents were the least likely to report that the Games had positive personal or public impacts, which researchers attribute to higher levels of opposition to the Games within B.C. compared to the rest of Canada.

“Despite the lower response in B.C., we know from other Games that as the competition draws nearer, people’s attitudes get more positive as they decide to ‘put their best face forward,’” says VanWynsberghe, a sociologist with a focus on sustainability research and a member of the School of Human Kinetics and Dept. of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education.

The eight-person OGI Project Group includes undergraduates, graduates, post-doctoral fellows and staff in disciplines ranging from Fine Arts to Forestry. It is measuring the impact of Olympic and Paralympic Games over time through a consistent and comparable reporting system. Olympic organizing committees around the world are now required to work with independent research organizations to conduct OGI studies.

Results from the pre-Games research will be compared to post-Games data, and VanWynsberghe estimates the last OGI report will be finalized by December 2010. The research team will make recommendations to VANOC based on their findings, and team members hopes future organizing committees will incorporate the results into criteria used to select host cities.

“Now that we know it’s possible to measure sustainability for such large events, we want to create a sustainability index for future host countries and sustainability standards for all future Olympic and Paralympic Games,” says VanWynsberghe.

Social, environmental and economic pre-Games impacts were reported in December 2009 and highlights can be found at http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2009/12/04/pre-games-impact-study-for-2010-olympic-winter-games-finds-modest-benefits/.

The UBC Centre for Sports and Sustainability is a legacy project of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Building on UBC’s research expertise in sustainability, social development and health, the centre will study the opportunities and impacts of sport and mega sporting events. For more information, visit: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/01/07/games-inspire-new-research-centre-for-sport/

The 2010 Paralympic Torch Relay began its journey on March 3 with a lighting ceremony in Ottawa. Ten sites across the country, among them Quebec City, Toronto, Victoria, Squamish and Maple Ridge, and approximately 600 torchbearers, are welcoming the Paralympic flame.

After UBC’s ceremony, the torch relay will move to downtown Vancouver where a 24-hour event continues and concludes around Robson Square. As the torch is extinguished and relit at the BC Place opening ceremony on March 12, it will signal the start of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games.

UBC Reports asked a number of the UBC participants to describe what the Paralympic torch means to them.

Katie Jeanes is an ardent lifelong volunteer whose activities include coaching for Special Olympic Basketball and supporting Right to Play, UBC Rec’s Storm the Wall event and Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports. Keanes graduated from UBC in 2009 with a BHK in Kinesiology and Health Science and minor in Commerce. She currently works as a research coordinator at the Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Function lab at Vancouver General Hospital’s Centre for Hip Health and Mobility.

“Carrying the Paralympics flame that unites the entire world in my hometown is going to be incredible. It holds a special significance for me because these athletes have had to overcome so much to be here. And to top it all off, being a torchbearer for the UBC leg of the relay makes this experience even more special because I have so many great memories here, although I’m sure this one will top the list.”

Samantha Jung will be carrying the flame as a media and student representative from UBC. A fourth-year English literature and psychology major in the Faculty of Arts, Jung has been writing frequently about UBC and the Winter Games in her role as a reporter for The Ubyssey, one of Canada’s longest running student newspapers.

“I am excited that I will get to share my story with not only my close friends, colleagues, boyfriend and family, but with students and the local community. I have been paying close attention to the Olympics and Paralympics for quite some time, and am pleased to take on a more inclusive role in the Games.”

Jennifer Krempien is an MSc candidate in human nutrition at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems. A native of St. Albert, Alberta, Krempien is a five-time Paralympian in wheelchair basketball. Her research focuses on the nutritional practices of elite athletes with spinal cord injuries.

“As an athlete, one of the most inspiring moments of each Paralympic games was to experience the torch being lit. It was a brief moment in time when there was a collective sigh within our team and the understanding that all of the hard work got us to this point was worth it and for the next few days it was about playing our game because we loved to play and wearing the maple leaf with pride. I am so excited and humbled to play a small part in carrying the flame to the athletes of these Paralympic games and honour all of their years of dedication to their sport.”

Branko Radmilovic, a staff member with UBC’s Plant Operations for 13 years, has been participating in the Just Giver Ride for Parkinson’s since 2006. Each summer, Branko bikes more than 1,000 kilometres to communities across British Columbia where he engages in public lectures and community outreach projects. His efforts have helped to raise over $186,000 for Parkinson’s Research.

“It means a tremendous amount to me to be able to carry the torch for all those that have Parkinson’s disease and for those that are affected with a life-altering challenge.”

Bonnie Sawatzky is an associate professor in the Dept. of Orthopaedics and principle investigator for ICORD, the spinal cord injury research centre. In a wheelchair herself, Sawatzky has overcome a number of personal challenges and is known for her determination. Her research explores the biomechanics of human movement, particularly in children with disabilities.

“As someone who has a disability, carrying the torch symbolizes and celebrates the remarkable abilities that individuals can demonstrate no matter what our challenges are.”