Canada and its star Patrick Anderson begin comeback in wheelchair basketball at Paralympics

PARIS -- After six Paralympic appearances, three gold medals and 27 years of wheelchair basketball, Patrick Anderson is almost ready to move on.

But as he made clear in Canada's first match at the Paralympics, he plans to go out on his own terms.

Anderson, 45, helped lead Canada to an 83-68 victory over France in the first round of men’s wheelchair basketball pool play, scoring 31 points on Friday.

The Canadian star didn’t face a friendly crowd. French fans showed up to Bercy Arena in droves to cheer on their men’s team, who are playing in the Games for the first time since 2004. Every Canadian point was met with a chorus of boos and every missed basket was answered with a collective jab of the French flag.

But the victory helped Canada get closer to a medal, which it has missed out on the past 12 years.

The team’s dry spell comes on the heels of Anderson’s five-year hiatus from wheelchair basketball. From 2012 to 2017, he decided to spend more time on his musical career — he and his wife Anna Paddock perform as the singer-songwriter duo The Lay Awakes — and playing on a club team, and stepped away from the national team.

Since he’s been back in the mix, Anderson himself admits things haven’t been the same.

“I sometimes reflect on that first half of my career and talk about it, reminisce about it,” Anderson said. “But at the same time, this has been a whole different story.”

Anderson and the Canadian team earned gold medals in 2000, 2004 and 2012 (along with silver in 2008), but failed to advance to the medal round in 2016 and 2020. That Tokyo match was played with very little fan attendance as a result of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, something that Anderson mentioned he feels is different about these Games.

“Looking up to see my friends and family up there, after the Tokyo experience,” Anderson said. “That is going to live in my mind as a great memory tonight, playing against a great team in a great atmosphere.”

Anderson told a Spanish news outlet in February that he intended for Tokyo to be his last Paralympics showing, but when the result wasn’t what he hoped, he decided to attempt to lead the team toward one more medal. He also saw a lot of potential in his new crop of teammates.

Even as retirement looms, the man described by many as the Michael Jordan of wheelchair basketball is keeping his eyes on the prize and remaining optimistic about Canada’s chances this year.

“A good start, but it’s eight really good teams and a couple of really great ones,” Anderson said. “It’s only uphill from here for us.”

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Julianna Russ is a student in the undergraduate certificate program in the Carmical Sports Media Institute at the University of Georgia.

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AP Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games