Danielle Peers will be trying to carbon copy Jennifer Krempien's rookie season with the Canadian women's wheelchair basketball team.

And Krempien will try to keep her golden record intact, aiming for a fourth gold medal at the Athens Paralympic Games come September.

Rookies peers and karla Tritten of Edmonton join the veteran Krempien on the women's team.

"It wasn't a bad way to start off," Krempien says of her 1992 rookie season, when Canada struck gold in Barcelona.

They haven't come in second since. Canada captured gold in 1996 in Atlanta and four years ago in australia.

"We have a really cohesive team and a lot of strong athletes on this team," Krempien says from her Vancouver home.

The 29-year-old St. Albert native fell off a picnic table at the age of five and has a spinal cord injury. She has been playing wheelchair all since 1983.

Peers found out in late May she made the national team.

"You think about the gold medal in the a back of your head," she said Tuesday. "But when you're at the Paralympics you just worry about having the best performance that you can." Peers is training 30 hours a week - starting at 5 a.m. - and wants to be prepared for whenever she's called upon.

"Being a rookie, you never know how much playing time you're going to get. You really never know what your role might be - cheering on the bench or in the starting lineup."

The former Grant MacEwan Griffin was forced to quit stand-up basketball six years ago when she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

Canada is the only country that allows able-bodied athletes to play wheelchair basketball. Able-bodied athletes cannot participate in the Paralympics, but both women say practice makes perfect.

"We get to play with able-bodied athletes here and that raises the level of the game," says Krempien. Peers agrees.

"If you have someone from able-bodied basketball who is a really great shooter, then they can teach you shooting skills in wheelchair basketball," says the 26-year-old.

The team flies to Athens on Sept.6 and begins play 11 days later. There are two pools of four teams each.

The national squad has been playing exhibition games throughout North America. Their next stop is at a Toronto tournament.

In the last two weeks they have tipped off again's the United States women, losing three of four.