Mike Whitehead reflects on incredible wheelchair rugby career and emotional 2025

For Mike Whitehead, 2025 has been an emotional year, bringing to an end his 24-year Canada  wheelchair rugby career.

The six-time Paralympian announced his decision in March after winning two silver medals and one bronze at the Games, as well as multiple medals at the World Championships and the Parapan American Games.

Whitehead, 50, has been through a lot in the sport he turned to while still in recovery from a car crash in 2000. Looking back months on, though, his overwhelming sense is one of gratitude.

“I’m thankful for many things, the support, I have a lot of gratitude for my coaches, staff, my teammates,” he tells the IPC.  “The journey I had over 24 years was a privilege and that was the extended version. It was longer than I anticipated.”

Closing a career

As is so often the case when athletes retire, it is not the rush of competition or even the medals they miss most, but the community and social aspects with teammates. Whitehead was no different.

He got a gym membership and started training by himself. But he did not enjoy it. He found a different gym and started going to classes. 

“There is a group of guys in there I train with every day at 9:30, they’re semi-retired as well. I’m hanging with the guys, having coffee, chit-chatting, there is a few things I’ve been missing and I’ve been able to supplement that which is cool,” he said. “I’m playing a lot of club rugby, that is scratching the itch, and some wheelchair basketball, which has also been a lot of fun.

“I expected [to miss my teammates] but you don’t know until you feel it. I felt it; [the first gym] was isolating, I needed to shoot the breeze and have some jokes. Social health is a big thing.”

Beyond wins and losses

Heartbreak and elation from his career still play on Whitehead’s mind even now, but he says he learned a lot and is already helping the next generation.

“I think about wins and losses and what I could have done. You play those things in your head, but they have less impact on me than they used to emotionally. I got to see a lot of the world, see a lot of my friends and work really hard and learn so much from Sport Canada and Wheelchair Rugby Canada provided me.

“I was chatting with a girls’ basketball team that is heading to provincials and [telling them about] some of the stuff I learned during my career around hydration. Their eyes were popping out of their heads. Some of the losses still sting, but maybe a little less.”

But as he looks back, it is the impact he was able to have on his family and the experiences he could share filled him with the most pride.

“There were big wins that stand out, but when I retired I chatted with my kids a bit, they are young adults and reflected on their experience,” he smiles. 

“They went to three Paralympics as youngsters. I’m really proud when they share, to provide my children with an experience of travelling the world, seeing the Paralympics and seeing their dad. It was just normal for them; I asked if they wanted to go to Paris and they said they were busy! They’ve been there and done that; they’re thankful and I’m proud of that.”

“[Having a family] is a lot of hard work. I have friends who are young parents, it is a lot of work. I’m very thankful for healthy kids.”

Wheelchair rugby community

Whitehead still remembers his accident, which resulted in a spinal cord injury, very clearly. While there were difficult moments to come to terms with, it was sport that gave him purpose and focus again through the uncertainty.

“It was February 2000 and one of the wheelchair rugby players, David Wison, came and saw me at the hospital. I was still an impatient in spinal chord rehab. He said ‘I heard you like sports and we play wheelchair rugby, want to come to practice on Tuesday?’ He picked me up, I jumped in the van, slowly, I could barely transfer. I went into a gymnasium in Chatham, Ontario. 

“I met others with disabilities, some had more function than me, some less. I was introduced to a community, a sport and I felt at home. I knew, post-injury, things were going to be okay, I could see it. Doctors and nurses are wonderful, they told me I needed to hang with other people in wheelchairs to see it. I knew it would be okay, they had jobs, families, kids, they smile, laugh and joke.

“Dave was getting ready for the (Sydney) 2000 Paralympics, I was like ‘okay, lets go’. From that point on I wanted to make the national team.”

Whitehead was candid on the impact his accident had on his life, and the journey he went on in accepting his life as he knew it was over. But, given what has transpired since, he would go through it all again.

“It was catastrophic, and hard to explain. When your mom is shattered, your dad is beside himself, it is hard on the family when you break your neck. I remember crying in the hospital, you go through the ‘why?’ and grieve an old life, it is profound. Now it is interesting to hang with people who break their necks, we have this common bond. It is really cool. 

“To be reintroduced to sports and community, it saved my bacon. That is a fact. I would go back, an electrician, playing senior league hockey and softball, the boys, I traded that in to travel the world and get paid to play wheelchair rugby for my country. I would make that trade again.”

Growing the Paralympic Movement together

Having seen the growth and development of not only the sports but also the Paralympic Movement generally over the last six Games, Whitehead has become a valued voice on the subject, leading TED talks and helping spread awareness.

While he says the explosion of interest at Paris 2024 is a world away from when he started, it must continue.

“Sport skills are life skills; they’ve always helped me. I’ve done some talks, I feel that there has been a lot of us representing the Paralympic Movement and doing work in different communities; it is making an impact. As long as we continue to chip away, the Movement is getting bigger and bigger for all the right reasons.”

“I was going through some stuff at my mom’s house and I found an old interview from 2004 in the newspaper. It was not front page. 

“Now it is 20 years later, it is everywhere, the Movement is strong, healthy and growing, there is so much respect for us now. But we still have work to do.”