Well, the World Wheelchair Games have wrapped up in Christchurch, with our top rated team, the Canada Nordiques earning the silver medal.  There was no All-Tournament team announced, similar to the policy used at the Paralympic Games.

After the pool round, the Nordiques were ranked 3rd, behind both the eventual winner, New Zealand Kea, and the 10-member team from the United States.  The semi-final had the 'Diques facing a confident American team, led by Paralympians such as 2.0 Cliff Chunn, and 2.5 Dean Maccabe, along with 2002 World Championship team members 0.5 Rob Krows, 2.0 Andy Cohn, and 3.0 Mark Zupan.  The Nordiques, led by 3-time World Championships MVP Garett Hickling, edged past the US team by that hauntingly familiar 1-point margin, which set up a Kiwi-Canadian final.

The Americans came back strong in the bronze medal game, kicking the Kiwi Kaka by a score of 55-37.  In the World Wheelchair Games final, the Nordiques came as close as any team did to the undefeated Kea, getting to within 4 points of them, and eventually losing to the charming host country by a score of 35-31.  Incomplete results are posted on our site and will be updated as the game scores become available.

There are finally some Canadian-content rugby photos on the WWG web site, with the photo to the right a sample of what they have on their site.

It is certainly been a great multi-cultural experience for many of our athletes, and a first multi-sport international competition for several of them.  For example, on the first day of competition in the sport of Athletics alone, there were athletes competing from Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, and the United States.  There are a total of 12 sports in the World Wheelchair Games program, with Canadian athletes involved in three of them.

Now that the rugby, powerlifting, and fencing events have been completed, there is still a little time left to check out Christchurch, although not enough time to thoroughly explore New Zealand, although some of our team members have opted for a longer stay at their own expense.