When Shaw suffered a brain injury she was a high-end hockey player with Olympic dreams. Now, she’s seeking gold in a different sport
Keely Shaw was 15 years old when she took her horse out to do some chores on the family farm in Saskatchewan.
“At my worst, I couldn’t move anything on my left side,” Shaw says. “I couldn’t wiggle my toes, I couldn’t roll over in bed. When I got to the point where I could eat on my own, it had to be a liquid diet because half my esophagus didn’t work.” When Shaw suffered the brain injury, she was a high-end hockey player with Olympic dreams. Even after a year of therapy, the function in her left side was still impaired. “I lived and breathed hockey,” she says, in an interview in Toronto before this racing season began. “So at 15 years old, I went through a bit of an identity crisis. I didn’t think I could ever be an elite athlete again. That pretty much broke me.
People ask when she started biking and she says about two years ago. Then they say, no, not when did she start with the national team, when did she start, you know, racing? “And I say, really, about two years ago.” She has a smile on her face when she says it. “At 24 years old I feel like I’ve been through so much,” Shaw says. Asked if she has been able to use that as fuel, she doesn’t hesitate: “Oh, absolutely,” she says. “The weirdest thing in the world is not being able to wiggle your toes. So when I don’t feel good, when I don’t want to be there, I wiggle my toes” She thinks about not being to do so. “If I got through that, this is nothing,” Shaw says.
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