Player’s Own Voice podcast: One of world’s top wheelchair rugby players also champions accessibility | CBC Sports

When a team athlete is named MVP over and over again, that’s saying something about their ability to lift everyone’s game around them. Zak Madell, one of the world’s best wheelchair rugby players, has owned that MVP distinction almost since the day— a dozen years ago — he first got into his notoriously rock ’em sock, ’em sport. 

Madell is as effective an advocate for the power of sport as you’ll ever meet, loud and clear and persuasive on the many ways that sport, adaptive or otherwise, has enriched his life. Seeking out, encouraging, and drafting new players is an ongoing passion for Madell. What’s interesting to hear now is how his easy leadership is also expanding into areas beyond competition.

Madell did architecture technology studies and that, plus his natural tendency to creativity, plus a long interest in better accessibility for all, leads him toward helping firms improve all manner of public structures. From little coffee shops to mondo condo, there’s infinite room for truly inclusive improvement.

But first, Madell has a whirlwind of wheelchair rugby teams and tournaments to attend to. Player’s Own Voice Podcast host Anastasia Bucsis is keen to hear about Team Canada’s battle plans for the upcoming Para Pan Am games in Santiago, Chile. 

According to Madell, Canada is up against new and better competition all the time.  The country that invented wheelchair rugby (In Winnipeg in 1977, FYI)  can no longer count on international podiums in the sport. And that’s not because Canada is getting soft. Many more countries are in it to win it now, and even an ultra competitor like Madell agrees that’s a good thing.

There are transcripts of our podcasts for a hard-of-hearing audience. To listen to Zak Madell, Tara Llanes, Chuck Swirsky, Konrad Wasiela, Waneek Horn-Miller, Camryn Rogers, Bev Priestman, Allison Forsyth, Jason Priestley, Mimi Rahneva, Cito Gaston, Robert Parish, Aaron Brown, Kaylyn Kyle, Kurt Browning, Bianca Farella, Summer McIntosh, Beckie Sauerbrunn or any of the guests from earlier seasons, go to CBC Listen or wherever else you get your podcasts.