Frost promotes speed skating for Vancouver Paralympics

“People always say, ‘Well, why isn’t speed skating a Paralympic sport?’ and I say, ‘Good question – that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing,’” Frost says. “The potential is there to expand the sport if it gets more PR. That’s why I skate against able-bodied athletes.”

The reason speed skating is not in the Paralympics really boils down to a single issue: worldwide participation. Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) chief operating officer Brian MacPherson explains that to be eligible to apply to the International Paralympic Committee for inclusion in the Games, at least 15 countries need to have enough participants to hold their own national championships. “Participation – getting to that minimum level – it solely is that,” MacPherson says. “Frankly, if it got to that level, speed skating has some advantages over some other winter sports wanting and desiring to get in.”

The biggest plus for speed skating is that it has a counterpart on the Olympic able-bodied program – meaning facilities are already available – MacPherson notes, adding the CPC would “absolutely” like to see speed skating included in the Paralympic Games. “Considering there are only currently five winter sports, there’s room to grow,” he says, noting there’s a desire to broadcast more of the Paralympics worldwide. “It’s just that you’ve got to find, globally, those winter Paralympic sports that are ready enough to be included in the Games.”

Disability speed skating has to be built from the ground up, MacPherson continues – first, people need to know the sport is out there, then they have to join a local club, and after that it has to be pursued at a high competitive level. The most effective way for disability speed skating to grow, he adds, would be for national sports organizations – in Canada or elsewhere – to champion the disabled discipline of the sport, and encourage other countries’ organizations to get on board. “We’ve talked to Kevin (Frost) a few times to encourage him personally because it does take a lot of Kevins to get a sport off the ground,” MacPherson notes. “Like any pioneer, sometimes you feel like a lone voice in the wilderness, but eventually over time, you collect other lone voices and the lone voices become a group. And it just evolves from there.”

MacPherson is unsure when speed skating will become a full-medal Paralympic sport because it takes a long time to build a sport worldwide – 2018 is the earliest possibility, since the Paralympic sports program is reviewed eight years before a Games, prior to host city bidding. Inclusion as a demonstration sport – an option available at the hosts’ discretion – could happen sooner, he notes, although the Vancouver Organizing Committee decided against it for financial reasons.

Frost, for his part, just wants to raise the profile of his sport any way he can. “I know it’s there, but it’s trying to network to make it happen,” Frost says. “My philosophy is: I’ll do what I can and the best I can doing it, and if it happens, great. But everything you do in life, you don’t quit.”