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Standing Out

At 7’2’’, Paralympic shot putter Greg Stewart towers above the competition. The secret to his back-to-back gold medals? Vulnerability.

Jessica Natale Woollard

When Greg Stewart stepped into the shotput circle at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, he was throwing not just for himself, but for anyone who has ever felt different. Standing there alone, with all eyes on him, he embraced the discomfort, knowing that his presence tells a story larger than his seven-foot, two-inch frame.

“Whether you’re able-bodied or disabled, I think we’re always trying to figure out who we are,” Stewart says. “I think I’m on this earth to create support, to create a sense of belonging. To help people recognize that no matter who they are or what their outcomes are, they are good enough.”

The 38-year-old from Kamloops has stood out from the crowd his whole life. He was born without the lower part of his left arm, making him eligible to compete in the F46 classification in para sports. But it’s not his arm that Stewart considers his disability.

“To me, a disability is something that impacts you on a daily basis and impacts the environment around you,” he says, adding there’s very little he can’t do with one arm. “My disability is my height. I can’t go anywhere without ducking under a doorway, without people staring at me. There are so many things about my height that impact me daily.”

At age 14, Stewart was six feet, eight inches tall, making him a shoo-in for the sports at which tall people frequently excel—basketball and volleyball. While completing a degree in human resources, he joined the WolfPack at Thompson Rivers University and played five years of U Sports basketball. He was twice selected Canada West Defensive Player of the Year, in 2010 and 2011. Stewart also played on Canada’s national para volleyball teams, both standing and seated, for nearly 12 years. On the latter team, he won three world titles.

Despite his success in team sports, Stewart says he struggled to feel fulfilled, which, upon reflection years later, he attributes to not truly knowing who he was. He needed to reckon with himself. In his mid-20s, he embarked on a personal journey of discovery and acceptance, working with a counsellor to assist his growth and healing. It was during this time that he came to see himself as disabled, something he had never fully accepted. The acknowledgement of his disability was a positive step.

“I am disabled,” he says, “and that’s perfect. [Being disabled] is a portion of me, a part of me.”

It was after this newfound acceptance that the opportunity to throw shotput presented itself, when Stewart was 30 years old. A conversation at a Christmas party prompted him to begin training with Dylan Armstrong, Canadian Olympic bronze medallist, who coaches athletics in Kamloops.

My disability is my height. I can’t go anywhere without
ducking under a doorway, without people staring at me.

Success came quickly. In Stewart’s rookie season in 2018, he was ranked number one in the world in F46 shotput. The following year, he set a Canadian record and won silver at the IPC World Championships. At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, he clinched the gold and a world record with a massive 16.75-metre throw.

Then Stewart announced his retirement. He was physically sore and hurt, and after more than a decade of competitive sport, he wanted a change. But sport is in his blood, and retiring didn’t stick. He returned to the field, and in the 2024 season won silver at the World Para Athletics Championship in Kobe, Japan, and Paralympic gold in Paris, becoming the only Canadian shot putter to win back-to-back golds in the Olympic or Paralympic games.

In this new era of competition, his goals have shifted, Stewart says. Certainly, he wants to continue to excel and push the boundary of his abilities, but he also wants to use “the platform [of competitive sport] to support other people.”

He left his business in the automotive recycling field and now works as a motivational speaker and workshop facilitator, inspiring people with his vulnerability.

“I’m a 7-foot-2, 360-pound disabled man,” he says. “I can walk into a room and own it without even opening my mouth. I think because of that, and because I’m willing to talk about vulnerability, I can create an incredible platform to support people.”

In May 2024, he released an autobiographical children’s book co-written with author Sean Campbell. The book—Stand Out: The True Story of Paralympic Gold Medallist Greg Stewart—chronicles his story and delivers an inspirational message about the strength that comes from believing in yourself.

“I think we’re so caught up on what a winner looks like, that we don’t actually see the whole picture,” he says. “The reality is we’re all winners, as cliché as that sounds. Your best is your best.”

Photography by Allan McVicar