Skier to make history

Brian McKeever will make history at the 2010 Olympic Games by demonstrating the gap between Paralympians and Olympians isn't that big.The 30-year-old from Canmore, Alta., will be the first winter-sport athlete to compete in both Games. McKeever, who has less than 10 per cent vision because of Stargardt's disease, was named to Canada's Olympic cross-country team Friday along with 10 other athletes.After the Olympics conclude Feb. 28 in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., he'll race in the Paralympics which will be held in the same communities March 12-21.While five other athletes have competed in both Paralympics and Olympics, they have all been summer-sport athletes. South African swimmer Natalie du Toit was one of the main storylines of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, where she raced in the 10-kilometre open-water swim as an amputee.McKeever will attract the same international attention when he races in the Callaghan Valley near Whistler. The flashbulbs and cameras were trained on him Friday instead of Olympic medallists Chandra Crawford and Sara Renner at the Canmore Nordic Centre. McKeever was ready with his message."It shows if you dream big dreams, you can get there no matter what," McKeever said. "It's a message of hope for the Paralympics. In the past, the Paralympics has been seen as a sideshow, not by the athletes but just in terms of the attention that it gets.