![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/outrigger.jpg\")
\nAugust 21, 2001 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The wheelchair could have belonged to anyone.<\/p>\n
\nAugust 21, 2001 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The wheelchair could have belonged to anyone.<\/p>\n
It sat alone and empty on a dock, and shifted slightly each time Lake Lanier swelled beneath the platform’s wooden planks.<\/p>\n
In the background, was the finish tower from the paddling and rowing events of the 1996 Olympic Games. On the water, was the wheelchair’s owner, one of six people paddling an outrigger canoe.<\/p>\n
Some of the bodies in the canoe were abled. Some were disabled. It was impossible to tell which was which.<\/p>\n
When the boat returned, some paddlers stood up and stepped on out. Xavier Major waited to be lifted and helped back into his wheelchair \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Major’s mode of transportation since a gunshot wound paralyzed him from the waist down eight years ago.<\/p>\n
“I may need a little assistance getting in the boat, but once I’m on the water, I’m just as equal as the rest of the people in the boat, as far as I’m concerned,” said Major, 30, of Rochester, N.Y., who has been paddling outrigger canoes for three years.<\/p>\n
Major was in Gainesville for the demonstration events in outrigger canoeing at the United States Canoe Association (USCA) National Championships in early August \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and he was part of history. For the first time, an outrigger canoe manned entirely by athletes with disabilities powered its way down a race course.<\/p>\n
And that made Jan Whitaker cry. Her dream of making outrigger canoe an official event in the Paralympic Games was several paddle strokes closer to becoming a reality.<\/p>\n
“I can’t think of a more appropriate venue for this to take place on,” Whitaker said, sunglasses hiding her tears. “The place where the Olympics were held. This is overwhelming. This is a very emotional experience.”<\/p>\n
Whitaker is an avid paddler and retired physical education teacher from West Henrietta, N.Y., a Rochester suburb. Four years ago, she made getting outriggers in the Paralympics her “new goal in life.”<\/p>\n
It all started in 1997, when one of Whitaker’s students \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a 9-year-old disabled girl \u00e2\u20ac\u201d first sat inside an outrigger canoe.<\/p>\n
“It was her expressions of enthusiasm that really sparked my enthusiasm,” said Whitaker, 58, a former national champion marathon canoeist. “I know the joy of competition. I know the joy of camaraderie with other paddlers. I just feel that this should be an opportunity available to people with disabilities, as well.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a mission that I feel that I have to carry out.”<\/p>\n
Whitaker joined forces with the Rochester Rehabilitation SportsNet<\/a> program, and has since had athletes with all sorts of physical disabilities \u00e2\u20ac\u201d spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, brain injuries, blindness, amputations, multiple sclerosis, spina bifida \u00e2\u20ac\u201d paddling outrigger canoes on the Genesee River.<\/p>\n During the USCA nationals, Rochester SportsNet and The Rehabilitation Institute of Northeast Georgia Medical Center<\/a> offered a clinic for area recreational, physical and occupational therapists outlining how outrigger canoeing can be used as a therapy tool.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/outrigger2.jpg\")
“Y’all got a little cooled off, didn’t you?” Gainesville’s Mike Eberhardt said to me with a chuckle after his boat defeated \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and then doused \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mine.<\/p>\n