Alberta-developed VR technology aims to help Canada’s wheelchair curlers train for Milano-Cortina Paralympics

With less than nine weeks to go until the 2026 Paralympic Games kick off in Italy, Canada’s wheelchair curling team is hard at work getting ready to compete.

But this year, a virtual reality program — developed in Alberta —is aiming to help the athletes bring home gold.

“To our knowledge, we don't know of any other programs that are developed for seated users in the sense that they actually can see their body in the virtual simulation,” said Jennifer Dornstauder.

Dornstauder is the engineering technical lead behind the project, which was developed at Red Deer Polytechnic late last year.

“This takes away training environment constraints, training travel constraints, the physical constraints where you're tapering training before a competition,” she said.

“You’re removing a lot of the physical elements when you might only be interested in tactics and strategy training.”

Canada’s wheelchair curling team has earned a spot on the podium at every Paralympics, the only country to achieve that feat. Part of the reason for that may be embracing innovation. 

The sport, which some have nicknamed “chess on ice,” is different from its sister discipline in that there’s no sweeping, so there’s extra focus on strategy to ensure the rock goes where it needs to. 

“We have to use technology to be able to make the shots that we want. And that’s the really cool part about the VR, it's gonna be able to take our game to the next level,” said Dana Ferguson, the mixed doubles coach for the national program.

“We are all across the country right now. We need ways that we can train and be together even in different areas. And [the VR] will allow for that.”

One more perk? The simulation was created to look like the competition stadium, using photos