Brian McKeever of Canmore, along with guide Graham Nishikawa of Whitehorse, captured two gold medals in the men’s visually impaired category in cross-country skiing at the World Para Nordic Skiing World Cup in Canmore, Alta.

McKeever, in his sixth Paralympic season, is the most-decorated Winter Paralympian, with 17 medals.

With Nishikawa guiding him, McKeever won the men’s 7.5 kilometre race on Dec. 4 in a time of 18:54.2.

“I’m surprised we won today. At our age now, every day is a little different and you never know how the body is going to react, but anytime you are competitive, that is a win for sure,” said McKeever, 42. “The young guys out here are getting faster every year which is good. It is getting way more competitive now. I’m very happy with the start and to know we are in the game.”

The two then teamed up again to capture gold in the men’s 12.5 kilometre visually impaired middle-distance skate-ski race on Dec. 5 in a time of 28:50.2, barely edging out a Russian team by 1.4 seconds.

McKeever and Nishikawa then competed in the Men’s Sprint C, Visually Impaired event Tuesday. They finished fourth in the Qualification round and fourth in the finals.

The Star caught up with Nishikawa following their last race on Tuesday.

Nishikawa has been racing with McKeever for two Paralympics, Sochi and Pyeongchang.

“I’ve been with him for eight years, guiding for World Cups and Paralympics, World Championships ... this year Beijing is the big focus. We haven’t raced much with COVID in the last couple years ... three races and won two of them, so that was a really good feeling. We didn’t know how we’d really be doing against the field, but we’re still in there. We’re already talking about what we can do to be better. We got a bit of time to get in better shape for Beijing,” related Nishikawa.

The guide from Whitehorse is thrilled to do so well in Canmore.

“It’s great. We skied some really good races. Brian’s in really good shape ... we’re getting older. We just have to know that the training we put in this year is right where we need to be. We still need to get better, and we’re going to work pretty hard for the next couple months just to make sure that we’re in the best shape we can be, and for myself, just make sure I’m in really good shape and can help Brian achieve his goals and be a good guide for him.”

The two spend a lot of time training.

“He trains a lot. It’s hard to put a number on it, but he’s a professional athlete. He’s out there every day, twice a day ... skiing. We’ve been at this together for a long time and travel a lot around the world together so it’s been an amazing experience for me working with Brian every day, trying to get better.

“We’re getting pretty good at race tactics and getting the fastest skis we can right now. We’ve been through a lot of racing, so just know that we can try to control what we can control ... the rest of the field, they’re young and they’re fast, and we’re just trying to be a bit smarter than they are and work on our technique and fitness so that we can put some pretty solid races together.”

Nishikawa explains how the partnership works.

“He can ski without me. In the sprint, he can finish – I’ll jump out of the way and he can go to the line. He’s legally blind. He has trouble in sunlight, but a lot of it is working as a team so that he can draught off me and if there’s other skiers on course I can let him know what’s coming up, but he’s pretty proficient on his own.

“The big thing is working as a team because there’s different classifications within the visually-impaired category. So we’re trying to make up a percentage, for instance, on the Swedish skier. He skis in blackout goggles, so ... he has no vision at all. So he has 12 per cent on us. For instance, he started 28 seconds in front of us, so we need to work together to close that gap.

“It’s a bit complicated ... we’re tying to equalize everybody’s vision impairment.”

Nishikawa and McKeever are pretty familiar with the Russian pair (Stanislov Chokhlaev and his guide Oleg Kolodiichuk) they edged out for the gold in the middle-distance skate-ski race on Dec. 5.

“They’re old rivals,” stated Nishikawa. “We’ve known them for a long time ... they’re good in that race, the skate race, for sure. We hear the splits on this course, so they say ‘you’re tied, you’re tied, you’re one second back, you’re one second ahead.’ We have a strategy on the last lap. We just try to be tied with them and then you’ll have a bit left over to step it up and go for it.

“It was pretty cool. We got the split (time), and then we went for it, and were able to get it.”

The Russian team is only one of their main competitors.

“In that race they are, yeah. In kind of every other race there’s – like the Swedes, they’re the main competition today (Tuesday), for sure. The other Russian pairs are strong. There’s many teams that can win on any day,” asserted the guide.

Nishikawa says the competition is getting better.

“Absolutely. The level keeps coming up every year. It’s cool to see. The sport is developing. The athletes are training harder and getting faster.”

According to Nishikawa, McKeever started in the sport around 2001.

The guide is looking forward to Beijing, which they are looking at peaking for.

“Absolutely, yeah,” he exclaimed.

Next up are the World Championships in Lillehammer, Norway in January (8-23), the last event before Beijing. Nikishawa said things are looking very good for the Worlds.

“After this weekend, great ... this is a bit of a confidence boost, good test. I think we can get better from here. We’re definitely not in top-top shape, but we’re still in the mix every race, so that was kind of the goal of this competition. We’ve been looking forward to Beijing for four years. The whole goal is to be in the best shape in March.”

Even though he’s now living in Canmore, the Yukon will always be home for Nishikawa.

“I’ve been skiing for my whole career out of the Yukon. I grew up there and ... just have a strong connection with the club and the community – although I live in Canmore now, my family’s all there. I’ve always been a member of Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club and developed and grew up on those trails and raced for myself, and my sister got in the sport and raced.

“And then this opportunity came along, which I had no idea existed, but it’s just been so amazing, and eye-opening, to see this side of the sport ... to be able to just work with a good friend of mine for the last eight years has been tremendous. Kind of just focusing on working as a team and helping him and trying to win races.”

Before he partnered with McKeever, Nishikawa skied in the World Championships on the national team for a couple of years.

“In 2014, I was gonna stop racing for myself, and he asked me to come along as a guide, and now years later, I’m still guiding, so it’s just been awesome,” enthused Nishikawa.

“I’m just there to get around the course as fast as possible and help him where I can.”