After 20 years on the national team in a swimming career that produced 16 Paralympic podium visits and 32 world championship medals, Benoit Huot announced in January he's retiring.
The 35-year-old Order of Canada recipient from Longueuil, Que., sensed the end was near when he finished his last race at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro but decided then he'd try to see it through to the his sixth Paralympics next year in Tokyo. But he knew he no longer had what it would take to improve on his record as a nine-time Paralympic champion.
"I didn't want to go there just to participate, I wanted to be competitive, the same way I was for my whole career and that wasn't going to be the case, so I decided to step back," said Huot, in Prince George this week for the World Para Nordic Skiing Championships as part of the Canadian Paralympic Committee broadcast crew.
"I realized all my sporting objectives and dreams were accomplished and it was time to move on."
The next phase of Huot's career as an ambassador for para sports is just beginning. Throughout his competitive career he's remained an outspoken advocate and his success as an athlete has encouraged the government to continue funding national team programs and help Canada become a world leader in promoting programs which encourage athletes with physical impairments to stick with their sports.
"Being outside of the athlete position I'll be in a good place to help grow the movement and visibility and awareness," said Huot, who was just 14 when he made his first national team.
"It's day and night compared to 20 years ago in terms of visibility, awareness, credibility. We were able over the last 20 years to educate Canadians and people around the world on what para sport is all about. There's still a lot of work to be done but I think we are aiming towards that dream of seeing the Paralympic gold worth the same in everyone's eyes around the world as the Olympic gold.
"People understand now that para sport is high performance, it's not just participation."
Born with a club foot which limits his mobility, Huot won three gold medals and three silver at his first Paralympic Games in Sydney in 2000.
Four years later in Athens he won five gold and a silver. In London in 2012 he set a world record in the 200m individual medley and won three more medals as Canada's flagbearer for the closing ceremony. He was awarded the Order of Canada in December 2016.
Huot always felt his country's support while he was training for competitions and he had the same resources made available to able-bodied national team members. That recognition for people with physical challenges extended into the everyday world of building codes and creating a world more friendly to people with disabilities. In the early days of Huot's career especially, Canada was more of an exception to that rule.
"We were quite lucky, us athletes from Canada being in country where we focus on inclusion and accessibility and making diversity a priority," he said. "This definitely was a big trend that helped grow the movement and become a pioneer as a country around the world. It's not a coincidence why we had for many years success internationally in para sport, because our government invests as much as they do, whether it's Olympic or para sports.
"Now the rest of the world is catching up and we need to make sure to maintain this level of quality and focus on those investments and making sure the development is being done in the proper way."
Canada's role as a host country for events such as the 2010 Paralympics and this week's World Para Nordic Skiing Championships at Otway Nordic Centre are essential to bring communities together, giving people a chance to see firsthand what can be accomplished at the highest level. Huot was impressed with the busloads of elementary school students who came to the races at Otway and he says that will help the para movement grow at the grassroots level.
"It's probably the first time in their lives they've seen para sport and they're going to go back home and share with their friends and families what they saw," said Huot.
"This is to me a gift because over 20 years it's rare that we get a world championship. It's quite neat and we're going in the right direction. The Canadian Paralympic Committee is doing a great job to promote it and making sure that the athletes come first."
Huot says he will miss the thrill of racing with the maple leaf on his Speedos and seeing parts of the world he's never been. The medals and championships he's won are an important legacy for him and his family but it's what he's done to inspire others to follow in his wake that has the most lasting effect on him.
"The medals are good but what makes me most proud today in leaving the sport is to see where the movement has been and where it is now," Huot said.
"I remember being in Sydney and we did well as a country with lots of medals and Australians were happy but we got back home and no Canadians had any idea what had happened. There was no media, no television coverage, there was nothing.
"Today, just being here on the broadcast team and sharing the athletes' stories, 19 years later, this is what makes me the most proud, to see where the movement has gone and where we are going forward. Because we didn't have that when we started."
Huot will continue his work with the Canadian Paralympic Committee and Radio-Canada covering the para sport Super Series, which will include the world sledge hockey championships, para world athletics championships and Para Pan Am Games, leading up to the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.
"With this new initiative we will try to do as much as we can from sport to sport so Canadians can witness the athletes perform and I think it will help the Paralympic brand grow and inspire those Canadians living with a disability to become more active," he said.
