‘Be you’: Canada’s Greg Stewart still writing story as athlete at Paris Paralympics

Greg Stewart, the seven-foot-two Paralympic shot putter, wants to spread one message in Paris.

“Be you.”

Stewart is unique — not only is he exceedingly tall, but he also weighs around 350 pounds.

As he speaks on the phone from the food hall in the Athletes’ Village in Paris, he laments how some people always feel the need to comment on just how big he is.

Reilly remains the face of Stewart’s WhatsApp profile.

“I’ve gotten it a few times,” Stewart said. “I just need to get a shout out from him.”

Perhaps a second straight gold medal could get it done. Stewart, who was born missing part of his left hand, took top spot in his F46 classification at Tokyo 2020 in his Paralympic debut, possibly helping to spark the throwing revolution which saw Canadians win both the men’s and women’s hammer throw at the Olympics.

The 38-year-old Victoria native retired shortly after Tokyo, but returned to the sport a year later.

He said his story as an athlete still felt incomplete. Perhaps the final chapter could arrive on Wednesday, when he competes in the F46 shot put final at 4:05 a.m. ET. Live coverage will be available on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Paralympics app and CBC Gem.

“Whatever the experience is on [Wednesday], you’ll be able to take a few things from that and be able to share about it. Our mental health matters, everyone matters and I just hope that one day we can all recognize that,” Stewart said.

Stewart said he was unable to acknowledge that he was disabled until turning 25.

Focus on feelings

More than a gold medal, Stewart says he hopes to share his entire story in Paris: the ups, the downs and his feelings throughout all of it.

“I’m a person that is all about feels, you know, how does my body feel? What are my thoughts? What are the feelings behind these thoughts? How can we address these feelings so that instead of a sense of fear or guilt or anger, how can I rearrange this and make it feel loving and make it feel fun? And that’s what my constant battle is — how can I make this feel good?” Stewart said.

Meanwhile, Stewart said being at the top felt lonely.

Now, he’s attacking the competition in Paris with a mindset of “what’s the worst that could happen,” a question to which the answer is finishing 10th out of 10 shot-put competitors.

“That would probably be more motivating than winning another gold medal. Because that loss would be something that I would say 99 per cent of society would understand, or at least have an experience with versus winning a gold medal,” Stewart said. 

“And one thing I always said that after winning the gold, it was a tough thing to do because it can be a lonely place because we’re all trying to achieve these great, incredible things. But how often does it actually happen?”

‘I’m having fun right now’

Stewart, who recently co-authored a children’s book titled “Stand Out,” said he’s looking forward to competing in a stadium full of fans in Paris, and that he and coach Patrick Waters — a fellow Para athlete  — have been imagining what it might feel like to throw in front of around 50,000 fans.

He earned silver at worlds this year in his first major competition since coming back from retirement.

But Stewart said he’s trying not to get ahead of himself before his title defence.

“I think for me, I’m having fun right now. I think that’s what’s going to help me when I compete is just enjoying this process, having fun and just seeing what happens,” he said.

Stewart’s gold medal in Tokyo was the first in a generation of Canadian throwers. Since then, he’s seen fellow B.C. natives Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers each go back-to-back with world and Olympic titles in hammer throw.

Like Katzberg, Stewart was once coached by Dylan Armstrong, the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist in shot put who is often credited with reviving the Canadian throwing program.

“The selfishness in me wants to say I’m glad that I was able to kind of help kickstart Canada’s throwing community just from Tokyo and then now we have further development going on in the Paris Olympics and I would love to help out the throwing community in Canada again and try and medal,” said Stewart, who added that more funding is still required to help the program grow even further.

But in Paris, Stewart’s goals go beyond athletics. He wants people to know that mental health matters and that everyone should be comfortable in their own skin — even if that sometimes means taking a break to become John C. Reilly. 

“As athletes it’s important that we share our feelings through our sport because where else can you go, what other jobs can you have, where you’re so consistently reflecting on how you’re feeling? Like, how does my body feel? How does my mind feel? How’s my spirituality, my emotional intelligence, like what’s going on here?”

“I think if we’re able to share that as athletes great things happen.”