With his gold medal around his neck, wheelchair curler Mark Ideson is back in London from Italy, trying to readjust to the time change. “We got back late last night and, happy to get a little bit of rest in,” said Ideson, who flew home from the Milano Cortina Paralympics Monday. “It’s taken some time to take it all in. We had an incredible adventure over there, capped off by a wild finish.” The gold medal finish against China was anything curling fans have ever seen. Unsure if his Canadian rink had the winning stone, and the clock ticking down to just three seconds, Ideson decided to throw a perfect tap on his own stone to ensure the win. “It was beautifully dramatic and chaotic,” he recounted. “John [Thurston], my teammate in the house, just wasn’t 100 per cent sure that we were shot rock. When you’re in a chair, you’re trying to look down, and it’s really hard to tell exactly who is shot [stone] and you don’t want to trust the overhead camera. He was like, ‘I think we got to throw it’ and time’s counting down. I just happened to get it away with less than three seconds left and tapped it in for shot [stone]. The place erupted and it was wild.” This is Ideson’s fourth Paralympic Games after winning gold in 2014, and bronze medals in 2018 and 2022. “The scenery was incredible,” said Ideson. “The village felt very much like a village with the cabins along an old airport. They had a little bar in the middle. Corona was serving zero per cent beer and a coffee truck was incredible. The area was beautiful and had a village feel with everyone walking around in their country’s colours and athletes coming in with medals. It was just super inspiring.” While he has never curled for the money, he’s returning home with a bigger bank account. The Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) Athlete Excellence Fund has provided all Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists $20,000 for a victory. The incentive was designed to support living and training expenses. Since his return to the Forest City, he’s felt an incredible outpouring of support. Olympians and celebrities like hockey legend Bobby Orr from his original hometown of Parry Sound have reached out. “I’ve got messages, emails and texts of people’s experiences watching those last few seconds unfold,” said Ideson with a smile. “Everyone saying how loudly they were yelling at their TVs to just throw the rock. We felt all that support over there in Italy, and I can’t be more thankful.”
