Members of NC’s alumni community were on the world stage in March 2022 at the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing. In the spirit of athletics and competition, NC alumni Christina Picton and Rod Crane represented Canada on the biggest international stage for their sport.
Christina Picton: Class of 2015
Picton, who graduated from NC’s Graphic Design program in 2015, competed in Para Nordic skiing, as well as Biathlon events.
Prior to the event, she expressed her excitement as she prepared to compete at the Paralympic Games.
“This has been my goal for many years,” she said.
Born and raised in Niagara, Picton is a resident of Fonthill. She moved to Canmore, Alberta in January 2021 to train daily at the Nordic training facility.
While she only began to pursue sit-ski as a sport in 2019, she has been involved in Para sport since she was 11 years old. She played sledge hockey at an elite level for many years and was captain of the women’s national Para ice hockey team. She was also the first female athlete to try out for Hockey Canada’s senior men’s Para ice hockey team.
Picton has been active in developing Para ice hockey throughout Canada and in her own community. In fact, it was when she was facilitating a ‘Learn to Sledge’ program in Port Colborne that a participant turned her attention to sit-ski, and she tried it for the first time in 2018.
“This sport is very freeing for me,” she said.
“I had been playing sledge hockey at an elite level for years with the desire to lead the Canadian women’s Para Ice hockey team at the Paralympics; however, women’s Para hockey is not yet a Paralympic sport and it will be years before this will happen, so I turned my focus to Para Nordic skiing and biathlon.”
Success came quickly for Picton.
In 2019, she earned enough race points to achieve provincial team status and traveled to Canmore to participate in a prospect training camp. In January 2020, only one year after her first skiing competition, she travelled to her first international event in Utah where she placed third in the sprint event and middle distance race.
At the 2021 Para Nordic World Cup in Canmore, Picton secured her spot on the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games Team with three finishes in the top five.
In preparation for the Paralympics, Picton noted that she trains every day: strength training in a gym and, without snow, by using a mountain board, hand cycle, or ski erg to maintain fitness and build stamina year-round. Once the snow arrives, she uses the sit-ski. She also trains at the range three to four times a week under the watchful eyes of a shooting coach.
In addition to her athletic career, Picton owns and operates her own business, Amped Up Design & Creative. Her knack for creative design and artwork led her to enrol at NC and set the foundation for her career in the field.
“The program established a solid foundation of understanding the principles of graphic art design; the application and the importance of getting it right,” she said. “I love working with clients to see their dreams/visions become reality for them through my work.”
Rod Crane: Class of 2013
Crane, who graduated from NC’s Recreation Therapy program in 2013, played defence on Canada’s Para Ice Hockey team (formerly sledge hockey).
He is one of the newer players on the team.
Crane grew up in Heathcote, Ontario. An active child, he played stand-up hockey as a goalie for 12 years. In 2010, at the age of 18, he sustained a spinal cord injury after attempting a backflip on a trampoline.
Attending school soon after the accident helped him build independence. By 2014, he started playing Para ice hockey, after a social worker from the hospital introduced him to the Elmvale Bears, a competitive team in the Ontario Sledge Hockey League’s A division.
Crane competed in the last two IPC World championships in 2019 and 2021 where they won silver medals both times. In 2019, he scored his first goal for Canada at the world championship. In 2021, he scored two goals in a round-robin victory. He is also a nationally ranked Para alpine sit skier.
When he’s not pursuing his athletic interests, Crane puts the education he acquired at NC to work in his career as an activationist at Errinrung’s long-term care and retirement community in Thornbury, Ontario.
For information about the Paralympics visit isit paralympic.ca.
