Ask the Paralympic pioneers: Brian McKeever on Para cross-country skiing

 Get ready for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games. The Paralympic Winter Games return to Italy for the first time since 2006, gathering up to 665 athletes across six sports: Para alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para cross-country skiing, Para ice hockey, Para snowboard and wheelchair curling.

This week, hear directly from legendary Paralympians as they answer your top questions about their sports.

We spoke with Canada’s Brian McKeever, a 16-time Paralympic champion-turned coach, about everything you need to know about Para cross-country skiing.

 

Para cross-country skiing 101: The sport for everyone

1. What is Para cross-country?

We have three categories of Para cross-country skiing races for men and women. These are standing, sitting and visually impaired. Athletes with vision impairment would be competing with a guide skier.

 

2. How did you take up the sport?

I will blame my parents. I think it tends to be a family sport. People get kids involved at a young age.

 

 

3. What did you enjoy the most about competing?

I enjoyed the training aspect of it. I enjoyed experimenting with training and then using the races as a proof of concept.

 

4. What were some of the challenges or difficulties you faced in the sport?

I think for me, it was always just making sure that I could find motivation through the training seasons, because it's a lot of hard work, and it's not always easy.

Sometimes it's fear-based; if I don't go out there, then my competitor might be doing that work and will be getting an advantage.

When it's a nice, blue, sunny day and the ski tracks are beautiful, then, you know, that’s when everyone wants to be out there.

When you're a top-level athlete, doing sport as a job, it is difficult to describe it to people who do it for recreation. When it's recreation, you have a choice. You can choose not to go out there on bad days, on miserable days, on days when you're not feeling very well or are tired.  For training athletes, they don't. If you don't put in that work, you won't be competitive.

 

Inside the Para cross-country skiing playbook

1.  Can you tell us about the strategies that you used during the race?

From a tactical standpoint,  pacing is important, whether it's a short break or a long race, knowing when you can sustain, when you can accelerate, when you have to take rest, what is the section of course where you have to be really focused or you'll lose time, and where can you back off and rest and not lose time.

 

2. How did you communicate with your guide during races and what is the key to good communication?

It has to be a team. Depending on how much vision the skier has will change how much communication and what the guiding strategy is.

So for me (because I have some visual function), there wasn't a whole lot of communication within the race.  Some check-ins – How are you feeling? How's the pace? Do we need to accelerate? And that was the main part of our communication.

But for somebody who's completely blind, every time you take a stride, there's a noise being made. So it just might be: “Yup, yup, yup, left, left...” So those athletes are being guided every step of the way.

 

3. How do Para cross-country skiers train?

May 1 is training new year and from then until the end of November there are big hours. The top skiers are doing 25-hour weeks and the development skiers are maybe doing 10 to 18 hours a week.

Then we'll try and find some training locations that are for novelty, to be away from home, to keep things fresh. That’s why we were in New Zealand in August. For our team that lives mostly in Canmore (Canada), the reasons we would leave Canmore is to chase snow or to chase altitude.

During the racing season, the volume comes down a little bit because there is more recovery time needed in between the races.

 

 

4. How do Para cross-country athletes keep their stamina?

That's developed over the years. One year does not a career make.

Each year, those total training hours go up. As a junior, you're thinking, ‘Man, a three-hour session is hard. At some point, I’m going to have to be doing four.’ But it's not like it happens overnight.

Stamina is built with those long sessions and multiple days in a row.

 

5. What is it like to ski uphill?

It's climbing. It's a power-to-weight ratio type sport. So people who have a little bit less muscle mass, more slight frames, they love going uphill. That's their favourite part of the race, because they know they're going to do damage there.

It's hard work. You can feel the power you're putting into your skis and poles equals rapid ascent. It's a bit of an addictive feeling.

I enjoyed that feeling; if I pushed hard, then it would glide a long way up.

It's a fine line, because you'll have days when the climbs are not your friend, and those are hard days for sure, where you're losing time on the climbs, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

6. How do you think Paralympic sport has evolved since you started?

The competition has gotten a lot deeper. You used to see people coming into the sport with a fit background from something else. Maybe they were runners and then had an accident and then discovered skiing. You could take a person who was new and, in a few years, make them competitive in the ski world.

Before, there were maybe five people in a category chasing three medals; now there are 15 people in a category chasing three medals and they are all competitive. 

 

Paralympic Winter Games at the centre

1. What does it take to become a Paralympic champion in your sport? 

It takes focus, dedication and sacrifice. It takes good guidance to slowly turn that heat up each year and provide new challenges and refinements to the athletes.  It's also a very technical sport and requires learning how to be efficient.

 

2. What do you remember most about Salt Lake City 2002, your first Paralympics? 

I remember my brother Robin coming with me as my guide.  

The (second race) we came in well prepared. We ended up winning and when we stepped off the podium, we kept our medals on for a little bit. It felt like we had achieved something.  

Robin turned to me and said: “When you started losing your eyesight, it was the year I came back from the Olympics, the first thing that hit me was, ‘Oh no, my brother’s maybe not going to be able to have this experience that I just did.’ And I now know that I was wrong”. 

He said, at the Olympics “everybody wearing your national jacket is your friend”. But at the Paralympics, “everyone is your friend regardless of nation, because everyone's gone through something. There's an understanding, there's an empathy, and that brings all these competitors a lot closer.” 

 

3. What is your favourite Paralympic memory? 

Racing at home in Vancouver (2010 Paralympics) was a good one. All the family was in the stands. They basically had a family reunion. We could hear some of our loud-voiced cousins cheering. That was very neat. 

 

 

Counting down to Milano Cortina 2026

1. What excites you most about the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games? 

The food and the coffee. 

I get to be on the other side of the fence now as a coach, which is awesome. I am really enjoying watching the athletes develop and want to see how well they do.  

 

2. What can fans look out for when watching Para cross-country skiing? 

It’s on a pretty hard course. I think there are opportunities for some spectacular physical performances and potentially some spectacular crashes because there are some fast downhills. I think there is going to be good competition and tight racing. 

 

3. Can you share a message for athletes who will compete at Milano Cortina 2026? 

Athletes going to the games, just by being there, being on television and having attention focused on them, is an opportunity to be representation to the next generation of kids coming up. 

They are going to be watching this and maybe see themselves reflected in the images they see. Showing them that there is a possibility in a high-level sport for people with disabilities that is really powerful. 

Somewhere in the world, a kid is going to watch and want to do that sport. Whether that becomes a lifetime passion and enjoyment or whether it becomes a career, that doesn’t matter.