Dean James Bergeron

Dean Bergeron (born February 12, 1969, in La Baie, Quebec (now Saguenay, Quebec) is a Paralympic athlete from Canada who competed mainly in category T52 sprint events in four Paralympic Games and is pursuing a career as an actuary.

Biography Bergeron was born in La Baie, Quebec (now Saguenay) on February 12, 1969. In 1986, at age 17, he joined the Shawinigan Cataractes of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to pursue professional ice hockey at the age of 17 years old. In a fistfight during a training session match in 1987, he sustained a spinal cord injury and became paraplegic. He returned to physical activity during his studies in actuarial science at Laval University.

Paralympian career

Bergeron continued in the field of athletics with wheelchair racing, also known as track and field athletics. He participated in several world championships and other international competitions presenting the event. He competed at the Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games, and recorded a total of 11 Paralympic medals.

Bergeron holds the world record in the 200m distance. He was the first athlete in his discipline to break the 400-meter distance in less than a minute (58s 54). He also holds the Canadian records for 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m of this discipline. He was a triple medalist at the 2008 Paralympic Games (two gold and one bronze).

He has also participated in the Boston Marathons in 1999 and 2004 and the Ottawa Marathons in 2006 and 2007 in the wheelchair racing category. He won the marathon at his first participation in 1999. For the years 2004, 2006 and 2007, he finished 2nd, 7th and 2nd respectively.

Career in insurance

In addition to athletics, Bergeron also pursued a career in the insurance field. Since 1993, he has been working in the field of life insurance. He has held positions as an insurance products advisor, including at Desjardins Financial Security. In June 2009, Bergeron joined La Capitale Financial Group, holding various executive positions including Director of Marketing and Health Promotion, and Senior Director of Operations. He holds the position of Vice President of Administration and Client Relations in the group insurance sector of this company.

From 2014 to 2020, Bergeron served on the Board of Directors at Praxis Spinal Cord Institute, a Canadian not-for-profit organization for spinal cord injury research and care.

Honours

Bergeron was named "Male Athlete of the Year" at the Sport-Québec Gala in 2009, a title recognizing the best athlete across all sports in Quebec (Chantal Petitclerc having earned the same honor on the female side the same year). He was chosen as one of sixteen athletes to carry the Paralympic Flame at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games of Vancouver and had the honour of lighting the olympic bowl in Quebec when the flame stopped there on December 2, 2009. Bergeron was admitted to the Parasports Quebec Hall of Fame in 2017. That same year, he was inducted into the . In June of the same year, he received the , also named Grand Graduate Award, which is the highest distinction awarded by the Foundation of Laval University.

On December 12, 2018, Bergeron's name was given to the second ice rink of the arena of the La Baie borough of the city of Saguenay in recognition of his perseverance and athletic accomplishments.