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HOST: Leslie Jones
GUEST: Patrice Bonneau, Canadian Paralympic Cyclist; Marie Claire Ross, Canadian Paralympic Swimmer
JONES: Atlanta is ready to host yet another Olympics. This time athletes for the Paralympics are going for gold. It's the second-largest sporting competition and it gets under way this evening for athletes with disabilities. Joining us now from Atlanta to discuss Canada's potential medal count is swimmer Marie Claire Ross and cyclist Patrice Bonneau. Good morning to both of you. BOTH: Good morning. JONES: Patrice, you're a world record holder in cycling. How did you get into the sport?
BONNEAU: Well, I began when I was something like 20, 21 years old, I think. Back then I didn't know that there was any disability sport for cycling so I just started cycling with the able-bodied cyclists. At the beginning I just did it for fun but after a few years I happened to know that there was some special Olympics, special races adapted for disabled people and I just sort of got interested in it and I had a Paralympic career because since then I've been racing with able-bodied cyclists most of the time. About two or three times a year I'm racing with disabled racers mostly for big events like the world championships, the Paralympics, those kind of events. So this is how I started. It started, you know, I was racing just for fun and it only came after the fact that I was good internationally and I started an international career. So this is how I picked it up.
JONES: You lost a leg below...