Brian McKeever

Brian McKeever

Brian McKeever(right) and Robin McKeever after receiving their gold medals at the 2010 Paralympics
Personal information
Born (1979-06-18) June 18, 1979
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Brian McKeever (born June 18, 1979) is a Canadian cross-country skier and biathlete.

Biography

He began skiing at the age of three and started competing at thirteen. At 19 he began losing his vision due to Stargardt's disease.[1] At the 2002 and 2006 Winter Paralympics he competed in both cross-country skiing and biathlon. He won two gold medals and a silver in cross-country the first year and bronze medal for biathlon plus two gold medals and a silver for cross-country skiing in the later year.[2][3]

His older brother, Robin McKeever, competed as his guide when Brian skis in the Paralympics, until 2014, when Erik Carleton took over.[4]

In 2010, he became the first Canadian athlete to be named to both Paralympic and Olympic teams.[5][6] At the 2010 Winter Olympics, he was going to compete in the men's 50km cross-country race, however Canada's coach decided to replace him with a skier who did well at an earlier event at the 2010 games and thus he did not become the first athlete in the world to compete in the Winter Paralympics and Winter Olympics in the same year.[7][8][9][10]

At the 2010 Paralympics McKeever won three gold medals for cross-country skiing.

He repeated this triple gold medal performance at the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics, sweeping the men's visually impaired cross country skiing individual events for the second time.[11]

References

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