‘Ottawa’ Dunklerley Steps up to Grab Paralympics Berth
On a warm late July evening for the second-to-last Twilight all-comers’ meet, the Terry Fox Athletic Facility track was the stage for a last-chance showdown between one of Canada’s greatest visually-impaired runners and the clock. He needed to run an impressive time to be eligible for his fifth and final Summer Paralympic Games or be left out of the running.
Throughout the spring, Dunkerley, who recently turned 39, had focused his training on the 5,000 metres. But he was “wacko fatigued,” as coach Ian Clark phrased it, and nothing was going right in May and June. The Paralympic trials men’s class T11 5,000 metres, which was run during the Canadian track and field championships in Edmonton, was “a pretty poor race,” according to Dunkerley, and he missed the qualifying standard by an uncharacteristic 33 seconds.