Losing her left leg to cancer has not stopped Heidi Peters from representing Canada on the highest stage.
Peters, a former student at Neerlandia Christian Public School and member of Canada’s paralympic volleyball team, returned to the school on Wednesday, May 18, with her teammate Shakarra Orr and coach Nicole Ban, with the purpose of introducing students to a unique form of volleyball.
Peters, who was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 16, said she has not let the loss of a leg hold her back.
“I started playing volleyball when I was six or seven, but I’ve been playing sitting volleyball for three years now. In total, probably around 10 years I’ve been involved with the sport in one form or another, and I love it,” she told the Grade 1, 2 and 3 students who attended the first of several presentations held by her throughout the day.
Her sport is exactly the same as regular volleyball with two exceptions - it is played entirely from the ground and by extension, the net is much lower as well.
“A lot of the manouvers that are used by myself, my teammates and other athletes who play this sport involve sliding or moving back and forth,” she said.
Ban agreed, expanding on Peters’ statement by adding that sitting volleyball is the paralympic discipline of volleyball.
“Heidi and Shakarra are two of the best in the country at this sport,” she said, adding all three of them, together with nine other athletes, will be representing Canada at the Paralympic Games in Rio, Brazil from September 7 to September 18.
“Everybody is different who plays this sport and that is one of the reasons why I like it,” Ban said, adding she has played regular volleyball for much of her own life.
“What the two ladies with me do might look easy but it is a lot harder than it looks. With your legs, you have a lot more range of motion, but without them, how this game is played, you have to be on the ground and that takes some getting used to. It’s even hard for me sometimes,” she added.
All of the athletes who participate in the sport has an impairment to some degree, Ban said, explaining that this is considered ‘classifying in the sport’, and added it is required to have a medical examination prior to participating in the Paralympic Games.
“Obviously Shakarra doesn’t take any body parts off to play, but we do have one girl who doesn’t have the lower half of her arm and she wears her prosthetic, but anyone with lower body amputations like Heidi have to take their legs off. One girl, with neither, takes both off and uses her hands to play.”
In order to play sitting volleyball on a paralympic team, Ban said, you have to be 16, adding that while there are some younger amputees who want to play and travel with the teams, it is a requirement nonetheless.
