Paralympic viewing guide: McKeever goes for his 15th gold medal

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Canada's biggest Winter Paralympic stars are delivering

The Canadian team added just one medal today in Beijing, but it was an impressive one. Mark Arendz won gold in the men's biathlon standing middle-distance event for his 10th career Paralympic medal. The 32-year-old from Hartsville, P.E.I, who took bronze in his biathlon sprint race on Saturday, now owns two gold, two silver and three bronze in biathlon along with a silver and a pair of bronze in cross-country skiing. Arendz's first two Paralympic medals came in 2014 before he won six in 2018 to set the Canadian record for most medals in a single Winter Paralympic Games. Arendz is expected to compete in three more events in Beijing, starting with the long-distance biathlon on Thursday night.

Canada's other big win today came in Para hockey, where a 6-0 rout of South Korea clinched a spot in the semifinals. The Canadians remain on track for another gold-medal showdown with the United States, which beat Canada in overtime in 2018 to win its third consecutive Paralympic title. The Americans beat Canada 5-0 in the tournament opener on Saturday.

Through four days of competition in Beijing, Canadians have won 13 medals, including five gold. That puts Canada in third place in total medals and in the official standings, which are sorted by gold.

On Day 5, another Canadian star can match Arendz by winning his second medal of the Games — and add to his jaw-dropping career total. Plus, Canada's wheelchair curling team will try to regroup from a tough day and stay in the playoff picture. Here's what to watch on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning:

Brian McKeever goes for his 19th Paralympic medal. Canada's most decorated Winter Paralympian won the men's cross-country skiing vision impaired long-distance race on Monday for the 14th gold and 18th medal of his incredible career. The 42-year-old has a great chance to add to that haul in the sprint event, which he's won three straight times — five if you count his 5km victories in 2002 and 2006, when that was the shortest distance. The competition starts with qualifying at 10:10 p.m. ET, followed by the semifinals at midnight ET and the final at 1:40 a.m. ET. Read more about McKeever here. 

Two other highly decorated Canadian cross-country skiers will also try for their second medal of the Games. Natalie Wilkie won gold in the women's standing long-distance event on Monday for the second gold and fourth medal of her young Paralympic career. She collected a medal of each colour in 2018, when she was just 17. Wilkie competes in her category's sprint event tonight, starting at 9:55 p.m. ET with qualifying and culminating with the final at 1:27 a.m. ET. Collin Cameron, who won his fourth Paralympic medal (all bronze) on Sunday in the men's sitting long-distance race, is also competing in a sprint event tonight. His starts at 9 p.m. ET with qualifying and concludes with the final at 12:45 a.m. ET.

Canada's wheelchair curling team will try to get back on track. Skip Mark Ideson, Canadian flag-bearer Ina Forrest and their teammates looked fantastic in starting the tournament with four straight wins. But they've since dropped three in a row, including losses to South Korea and Slovakia on Day 4, to fall from first place into a three-way tie with Latvia and Norway for the fourth and final playoff spot. Canada will face Great Britain (3-3) at 1:35 a.m. ET and Estonia (2-4) at 6:35 a.m. ET before wrapping up its round-robin slate vs. Norway tomorrow night.

More on the Paralympics

Catch up on everything you may have missed from Day 4 here. Read about how impairment classifications and timing adjustments work to level the playing field here.

How to watch live events

They're being streamed on CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. See the full streaming schedule here, including links to watch events when they go live. You can also catch Paralympic action daily on the CBC TV network. See the full TV schedule here. Read more about CBC Sports' Paralympic coverage plans here.

WATCH | What you missed on Day 4 of the Paralympics:

Quickly...

One superstar NFL quarterback is reportedly on the move, while another is staying put. According to reports, Seattle has agreed to trade its longtime standout QB Russell Wilson to Denver for a package of players and draft picks. Meanwhile, four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers confirmed that he has decided to stay with Green Bay. He reportedly agreed to a new four-year contract worth at least $153 million US guaranteed and perhaps as much as $200 million, though Rodgers disputed those figures and said that he hasn't officially signed yet. Before today's news, Rodgers was said to be considering retiring or asking to be moved after a rocky season in which he misled the public about his vaccination status, missed a game because of a positive test for COVID-19 and suffered another early playoff exit.

There's an unexpected name atop the Brier standings. Matt Dunstone, who's off to a 5-0 start at the Canadian men's curling championship, didn't exactly come out of nowhere. He skipped Saskatchewan to the semifinal at the last two Briers, losing to the eventual champion by a single point each time. Competing as a wild card this year, Dunstone's team knocked off four-time Brier winner Kevin Koe's Alberta rink last night in Lethbridge, Alta., to stay perfect. Heading into this afternoon's matchup vs. P.E.I., Dunstone's rink sat just ahead of Brendan Bottcher's defending-champion Team Canada (4-0) in the Pool A standings, and also had a better record than Pool B leader Brad Gushue (4-0). Gushue and Bottcher are the ones who beat Dunstone in the 2020 and '21 semis, respectively. Read about today's action at the Brier here.

Some of Canada's top bobsleigh and skeleton athletes want their leaders out. An open letter addressed to the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton board of directors and signed by "60+" unnamed current and former athletes calls for BCS president Sarah Storey and high performance director Chris Le Bihan to resign. The athletes say "the culture of BCS remains toxic" and its "leadership style feels authoritarian" despite changes made in the wake of the departure of Kaillie Humphries after the 2018 Olympics amid harassment allegations by the star pilot. Athletes who spoke with CBC News say that while BCS' supposed culture shift helped repair relations between athletes and coaches, those at the administration level didn't do their part. In the letter, the athletes say they're afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation from BCS' leadership. Read more about their complaints and the changes they're calling for here.

And finally...

It's International Women's Day — a good time to reflect on the progress made, and the work still to be done, in lifting women's sports. For a jolt of inspiration, watch every Olympic medal won by Canadian women at the Tokyo and Beijing Games in this video montage. Read about how some of Canada's Winter Paralympic medallists hope to inspire girls to try their sports here. And read about how modern women's sports stars are redefining the concept of strength here.

You're up to speed. Talk to you tomorrow.