A paralympic gold medallist from Vancouver Island and his partner are competing in Amazing Race Canada to show what is possible despite living with disabilities.
Tyler Turner and Kayleen VanderRee from the Comox Valley are taking part in the show’s ninth season, which premiered on Tuesday, and they were not eliminated in the first episode.
Turner, who won gold at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, is a double leg amputee after a sky diving accident a few years ago. However, being on the show has always been a dream for the athlete.
“I am a lifelong fan of the Amazing Race franchise and when Amazing Race Canada started, I wanted to be on it,” said Turner while sitting on the side of mountain bike trail.
“After losing my legs I thought it might not be possible, but I saw Jody Mitic in season one, a bilateral amputee. That aired before I lost my legs, but I watched it again in the hospital and I was like ‘dang, I could do this. I could probably pull this off’.”
Turner and VanderRee got accepted last year, but it took a lot of discussion before they decided they would go through with it.
The couple is a very skilled and adventurous, with Turner adding VanderRee is “definitely the smart one” out of the two of them. However, having prosthetics makes things more difficult and presents a lot of unknowns.
“I can run, but it’s not fun, it’s really painful and I actually struggle to stop. It hurts to stop so I generally just keep running, classic Forrest Gump style,” said Turner.
“It made logistics hard because when I go to do an activity in my regular day life, we plan and we bring gear. I have the right stuff, the right towels, the right change of prosthetics and liners. On the race, you can only bring what’s in your backpack.”
Turner says this includes repair kits for his prosthetics. The other challenge is normally he would finish an activity like mountain biking, get in his wheelchair and be done. In the race, however, it is challenge to challenge.
“Once you rip that clue and you start racing, race brain kicks in and you try and run. Mentally, it was hurdle,” said Turner.
A fifth-place finish was a proud moment for the couple after episode one. He says coming out of the experience, he hopes others will take away a drive to not let anything hold them back.
“We had doubts all the way up until we ripped the first clue. We were going across that bridge in Winnipeg and you can see in that opening shot how far behind we are,” said Turner. “But we did it, we just kept doing it, we had our heads down.
“I always say it’s not sexy, but you have to keep perpetual forward motion. If you can just keep moving forward one foot in front of the other that momentum keeps building.”
Turner and VanderRee are one of two teams still in the race from the Comox Valley. The show will air every Tuesday on CTV.
