Athlete given key to city
(Taken from the January 16, 2009 Saint City News)
By PHILLIP WOOLGAR
Saint City News		    

One of St. Albert's finest athletes was honoured with a key to the city last month.

Five-time Paralympic wheelchair basketball player Jennifer Krempien was at the meeting of St. Albert city council on Monday, Dec. 22, to receive the honour.

Overnight, when Krempien was five years old, she started to lose the mobility of her legs. It marked the beginning of the five-time Paralympic basketball player's career.

She said the paralysis didn't really change her attitude toward life.

"The most important thing is to embrace life," she said. "A spinal cord injury will change the way things get done, but other than that, it doesn't need to alter your life."

The rare blood cell condition, called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), stems from the arteries and veins of the cardiovascular system. A functioning system carries oxygen-rich blood, with capillaries forming a sponge like concoction of veins. AVM disrupts the flow of blood by developing a tangle of cells from the artery to the vein, and through the sponge, resulting in abnormal connections or blood vessels with no capillaries.

Her first games, in the a992 Barcelona Paralympics, was an opportunity to play with her idol, Chantal Benoit.

"I'd watched (Benoit) since I was 11, and to be her teammate was an amazing experience,
she said.

And a gold medal didn't hurt her enjoyment. She won three gold medals and one bronze, with a fifth-place finish last year in Beijing, China, and became Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association's "athlete of the year" in 2008. But in September, she retired.

"I just felt like it was time," she said. "I knew in my heart (Beijing) would be my last games. My body was starting to hurt a little."

Krempien, 33, said she will work toward her master's degree in human nutrition at the University of British Columbia. After that, she will continue working as a dietician in the multi-organ transplant clinic at B.C.'s Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

"I just like being in school," she said. "Even though I don't need a master's I want to keep studying."

Krempien attended Paul Kane High School in St. Albert, and moved to Vancouver in 2000.

Her mother, Connie, attributes Krempien's success to her positive attitude.

"She never felt sorry for herself," she said. "I wouldn't push her in her wheelchair. I just held her hand while she pushed herself."

Krempien also went to school on her own.

"If there was something I didn't think she would do, she would convince me that she could," Connie said. "And I would do the same for her when she thought she couldn't do it."
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