A Canadian who captured the ninth and 10th Paralympic medals of her storied career during the 2010 Games also returned home from Whistler with another prize: an award recognizing athletes who “have demonstrated an exceptional level of determination to overcome their adversities through sport and the Paralympic Games.”

Nine-time Paralympian Colette Bourgonje, who won a silver medal in the women’s 15-kilometre sitting event and a bronze in the women’s 5 km sitting competition, has now participated in nine Paralympic Games — three as a wheelchair track and field athlete in the summer and nine in the winter.

At Sunday’s Closing Ceremony, she and Japanese sledge hockey captain Endo Takayuki each received the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award.

After winning bronze on Thursday (March 18) at Whistler Paralympic Park, Bourgonje said this would be her last Paralympic Games, but added that she wants to stay involved as a coach and mentor to young athletes, especially those with disabilities.

“Colette… continues to embody the Paralympic Movement in Canada,” Blair McIntosh, chef de mission, for Team Canada, said in a statement issued on Saturday (March 20). “In addition to her success in para-Nordic skiing, Colette is a wonderful ambassador for the Canadian Paralympic Committee and a role model for future Paralympians.”

Last Thursday, after she edged fourth-place finisher Olena Iurkovska of Ukraine by just 3.3 seconds to capture the bronze, Bourgonje said she was extremely grateful — both for the support of Canadians and for the benefits Paralympic sport has brought to her life.

“I’m very grateful to have this medal, I’ll tell you,” the 48-year-old Saskatoon school teacher said, referring to the closeness of the competition.

Bourgonje, who also captured the silver medal in the women’s sitting 10 km race on Sunday, March 14, commented after that race that being an athlete is more of a state of mind than a stage of life.

“Age is nothing. Attitude is everything. I believe in that,” she said.

Bourgonje narrowly missed the podium for a third time on Saturday, competing as part of the three-person Canadian relay team that finished fourth. That team also included visually impaired skier Robbi Weldon and her guide Brian Berry, and standing skier Jody Barber.

Bourgonje then failed to qualify for the semifinals of the 1 km sprint race on Sunday (March 21), finishing 10th in a field that yielded eight qualifiers.

Bourgonje was a high-level competitive cross-country runner before she was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident in 1980. After discovering wheelchair sports and sit-skiing, she began competing again in the early 1990s and competed in her first Paralympic Games in Albertville, France, in 1992. She now has six winter Paralympic medals and four from the summer Games.

The support of Canadians has, at times, overwhelmed her — she said a package of artwork and letters of support she recently received from schoolchildren in her old hometown of Porcupine Plain, Sask., where she hasn’t lived for 30 years, moved her to tears.

“It’s great to compete in Canada and I’m just grateful for all the support,” she said. “I definitely want to give back to sport; sport is so powerful. It’s drawn our nation together. It’s definitely improved the quality of life for (herself and other Paralympians). The legacy from these Games will be phenomenal.”

Bourgonje, who moved to Canmore, Alta., this past winter to train for her final Paralympic Games, said she has talked to Canmore-based Olympic gold medalist Chandra Crawford about adding a disabled component to Crawford’s Fast and Female camps, which seek to empower young women in sport and in life.

She said she, her partner and her dog Muskwa — whom she called “my best training partner” — plan to move back to the Saskatoon area and be involved in sport development programs, she said.

Bourgonje said she hopes one legacy of the 2010 Paralympics will be a surge in grassroots sport programs for disabled youth in Canada.

“I think I need challenges to be happy,” Bourgonje said. “I look forward to skiing with school kids and especially those with physical and developmental disabilities.

“In Rick Hansen’s book Man in Motion there’s a quote that, ‘The end is just the beginning,’ and I really believe that.”