Kirby Cote inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame – Canadian Paralympic Committee

GATINEAU, Que. – For Kirby Cote, Wednesday’s induction to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame was an opportunity to reminisce.

Not about her 13 Paralympic medals, which included seven gold, over three Games, or that quintuple golden performance at the 2002 world championships, nor even her medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

‘’Today is the day I get to celebrate all the people that supported me,’’ said Cote, after her induction at the Canadian Museum of History. She was among a group of nine inductees that included Olympic champions Patrick Chan and Daniel Nestor.

‘’Most of all, my parents. They did such an amazing job with a child with a disability who had really big goals in life. I was a rule breaker, a feisty, stubborn, driven child.’’

In her spectacular Games debut in 2000, Cote won gold in the S13 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley as well as silver in the 50m and 100m freestyles.

Her best Games was 2004 in Athens with five gold (50, 100 and 400 freestyles, the 200 IM, and 100 butterfly) along with silver in the 100 back and 100 breast. She concluded her brilliant career in Beijing with silver in the 100 fly and 200 IM.

Since retiring, Cote has been running her own business as a massage therapist for the past 18 years and will be transitioning into a new role as executive director for Accessible Sport Connection Manitoba.

The 40-year-old Cote is the 16^th member and eighth woman in the Hall from the Para sport world.

‘’What still lives in my head is from the Sydney Games after my first race,’’ she recalled. ‘’Just the process of the warm down, the media, drug testing, changing, and then finally seeing my parents up in the stands.

‘’The meet had been done, the spectators were gone and they were just sitting there and there was just kind of this collective exhale.

“‘We did it and it was worth it.’”