In a career that spanned almost twenty years Manitoba's Arnold Boldt stands as the epitome of the athlete with a disability. Having found success in both disability sport and at the collegiate level (CIAU) Boldt is in a perfect position to analyse the pros and cons of the disability sport movement over the last two decades.

Arnold Boldt circa 1978

Boldt lived near Osler, Saskatchewan for first 12 years of his life then moved to Abbotsford, BC for two years, back to Osler, back to Abbotsford, then to Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Vancouver. Currently Arnie lives in Thompson, MB with his wife Inga and their two children. He is now the Principal of College Programs at Keewatin Community College. Arnie began to get involved in sport at a very early age. In elementary school found an interest in track and field. In Grade 3 at age 9, started to develop an interest in high jump and standing long jump. Built tracks and high jumps out of the prairie using diesel fuel to clear areas. Set up high jump stands with 2x4's jumped into sand pits or onto bales of hay. Even set up high jump in parents basement landing onto a couch.

Due to the nature of the farming community, physical injury was fairly common place, Boldt encountered nothing but positive support to pursue athletic endeavours.

"I was fairly well accepted for who I was, it a was quite easy to be yourself and do what you wanted to do without people pre-judging you."

Through prosthetist Stan Holcomb Arnie found out about sport for amputees and competed for Canada at the 1976 Toronto Paralympiad receiving his first gold medal. Also played wheelchair basketball in the Saskatoon area and played volleyball for Saskatchewan.

 

Saskatchewan Amputee Vollyball circa 1977
Arnie Boldt Center, Joe Harrison and Stan Holcomb in back

His introduction to disability sport answered the need to compete with other amputees, "I'd dreamed about having an event that put me on equal footing with others."

The 18 year old Arnold Boldt was part of the early days in Canadian Amputee Sports, "there was a lot of young and very enthusiastic people around in 1976. There was a lot of amputees around at that time who were very keen. We were all strictly amateurs, we had no formal training in a systematic way."

Arnie was approached by the CBC in 1977 to work on the script for the movie "Crossbar" which was "very loosely" based on Boldt's career as a high jumper.

From then on Boldt established himself as the worlds top amputee high jumper, garnering invitations to both disability sport and able-bodied track meets all over the world.

After 76 Boldt attended the University of Saskatchewan and University of Manitoba and competed for the track team in the high jump at the CIAU level.

"My best performances came at these meets, probably due to being the right time of year. I found it difficult to train through the summer for the disabled meets because I had to work."

"I believe in the theory if you are an average athlete and you compete against someone better, you will always perform better than of you compete against someone who not as good as you."

"My best performance in an outdoor disabled/amputee meet was in 1981 in Italy with a jump of 2.04m. My best indoor performance was at the indoor Tribune Games in Winnipeg in 1981 with a jump of 2.08m. My average CIAU performance was always over 2 meters".

Boldt has seen many changes in the disability sport movement in the last twenty years.

"The quality of the training and the dedication of the athlete has really improved. People take things a lot more seriously especially at the international level."

Despite the increased dedication of the athletes Arnie notes other factors in the popularity of Canadian Disability Sport, "there was a high point of enthusiasm in Canada around 1976, regarding media recognition of disability sport and it seems to tapered ever since."

Boldt sees the survival of disability sport (at least for amputees) in Canada down to the development of younger athletes.

"The nurturing of new athletes and new blood has been lacking."

Boldt is also disturbed that Federal funding was only made available in the last two years of his 18 year career as an athlete.

"I applied for Federal funding many times and was turned down for one reason or another. Maybe CASA didn't give me the right forms or they didn't have the right connections in Ottawa. Its not as if we didn't give anything back to the country either. Some of us would have done a lot better, stayed with the program longer and been a little more intense about the whole thing; this would have inspired a lot of younger kids to come along. There is still a lack of a Federal program that brings along athletes in combination with a development of employment or educational skills."

Arnie also feels somewhat hard done by in his lack of recognition by an unappreciative track and field audience, "it always blew me away that I was more famous in Europe than I was in Canada. I went to Italy almost a dozen times and I'd walk down the street after each meet and get mobbed."

As many of his peer also realise the continued development of Canadian Disability Sport is dependent on the various organisations finding new athletes, "if there is going to be a future for Canadian disability sport we really need to bring along the younger athletes."

Arnold's World and Paralympic High Jump record set in 1980 still stands at 1.96m. (The closest anyone has ever come to breaking this record was China's Bin Hou with a jump of 1.92m at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta).