Chantal was born on December 15, 1969 in Saint-Marc-des-Carrières in Quebec. At the age of thirteen, she lost the use of both legs in an accident. Gaston Jacques, a high school physical education teacher, was to have a decisive influence on her life when he convinced her to try swimming to develop her physical strength and stamina. It was Chantal’s first contact with sports and training.

My friend Gaston Jacques and some pictures from my first races.

When she was eighteen, Pierre Pomerleau, a trainer at Université Laval in Quebec City, introduced her to wheelchair sports. Using a homemade wheelchair, she took part in her first race and came in…dead last, well behind the other competitors. But never mind that, she had just fallen in love with wheelchair racing, and a long and fruitful career had begun!

Chantal competed in the Paralympic Games for the first time in Barcelona in 1992, returning with two bronze medals, the start of an impressive collection of eleven Paralympic medals and two world records

While Chantal was developing her skills as a wheelchair athlete, she pursued her studies, first in social sciences at the CEGEP de Sainte-Foy and then in history at the University of Alberta, where she registered in order to be able to train with Peter Eriksson, who remains her coach to this day.

Chantal competed in the Paralympic Games for the first time in Barcelona in 1992, returning with two bronze medals, the start of an impressive collection that now includes an Olympic medal and twenty-one Paralympic medals.

 

2010-11-16 

... read 

Canadian Paralympic Committee Congratulates Chantal Petitclerc on Being First Female Paralympian Inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame 

2010-11-11 

November 11 (Ottawa, ON) - Paralympic wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc became the first female Paralympian inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of F... read