Low and Tardif lead Canada’s Mission staff to Beijing

By Rachal Fleury

Behind every team of Canadian athletes at a Paralympic Games is a team of dedicated individuals known as the “Mission staff.”  These volunteers donate their time with one common goal in mind: to ensure Canadian athletes have the best possible experience at the Paralympic Games, both in and out of competition.

Approximately 120 Mission staff, including coaches, medical staff, team services officers and a media team, will accompany Canada’s 151 athletes (including eight guides) to the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing from September 6-17.

At the helm of the Missionstaff are Chef de Mission Debbie Low and Assistant Chef de Mission Gaetan Tardif.

Chef de Mission Debbie Low

Low has been on the Canadian Paralympic Committee’s Missionstaff at nine Games and was Assistant Chef de Mission at the Athens Paralympic Games in 2004.

She has been involved in amateur sport for 20 years and is currently president and CEO of the Canadian Sport Centre Ontario. Previously, she served as executive director of Paralympics Ontario, and as director of sport for Toronto’s 2008 Olympic and Paralympic bid.

Low was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, and is the mother of two teenage girls.

Assistant Chef de Mission Gaetan Tardif

Tardif is participating in his fifth Paralympic Games as a member of Canada’s Mission staff. He was a team doctor in Sydney and Athens, chief medical officer in Salt Lake Cityand Torino, and is now Assistant Chef de Mission for Beijing. He has also been named Assistant Chef de Mission for the 2010 Paralympic Games in Vancouver.

Tardif was born in Chicoutimi, Quebec. He attended medical school at the University of Laval and continued his education at the University of Ottawa (U of O), where he specialized in rehabilitation and sports medicine. He went on to work at the Ottawa rehab hospital and opened the U of O sports medicine clinic before moving to Toronto in 1998 to head up that city’s rehab hospital (which had merged from four hospitals into one). He is currently vice president of Patient Care and chief medical officer at Toronto Rehab.

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