PATH TO PARIS: AgBio alum Kozun serves up spot in Paralympics

For University of Saskatchewan (USask) alum Julie Kozun, her road to the Paris Paralympics started back in 2015 when she lost her left leg below the knee after a lawnmower accident when she was a dedicated volleyball player at the high school and club team level. After overcoming the initial shock and surgery, Kozun quickly pivoted to Para-sports by playing sitting volleyball, making the national team at the age of 15, in a testament to her talent and tenacity. Looking back, Kozun knows now that she actually needed more time to adjust to her new reality.

“Three or four months after the accident, I was already trying out for the sitting volleyball team,” said Kozun. “I was with the team, but then I came home and realized that I wasn’t really ready for it yet and I just felt like I wanted to stay home for a while. So I took a year off before I graduated and I was a lot better when I rejoined the team and I think a lot of that had to do with being ready mentally, and just being more comfortable with sitting down and playing an adaptive sport. Before that it just felt weird because I don’t think I had totally accepted what had happened to me yet.”

The year away gave her the time she needed to come to terms with what had happened while also giving her an  opportunity to refocus and re-commit to the sport she loved. She has been a mainstay on the national sitting volleyball team ever since and competed for Canada in her first Paralympics in Tokyo in 2021. Three years, later, she is preparing for Paris and a second shot at digging up a precious medal.

“We are more developed now as a team and I think we’re ready to go and show the world what we have now,” said Kozun. “As a young child, I had a dream of being in the Olympics as an equestrian horse rider, so it was really weird how it kind of came into fruition. But I think now the dream is to win a medal. Tokyo was awesome, but we placed fourth, so we really want to medal now.”

After earning silver in the 2022 world championships, Canada clinched a return trip to the Paralympics by advancing to the final of the 2023 World Cup in Egypt.

“This is probably the most dedicated team that I have ever been a part of, and we’ve had a lot of discussion about really buying in and connecting,” said Kozun, who added that her team is always honoured to carry Canada’s colours in competition. “It is very special. We wear it with pride and we know that we are representing Canada wherever we go.”

Along with a second shot at winning a medal, Kozun is looking forward to finally having family and friends in the facility to follow her and her teammates at the Paris Paralympics, after spectators were not allowed in Tokyo three years ago due to the pandemic.

“Tokyo was great because the country is amazing, but I think Paris will be better with the spectators and it will be a whole new experience for sure,” said Kozun. “My mom (Lynne) and my dad (Randy) are both coming, two of my aunties (Michelle and Kyla), my boyfriend (Ernie), and two of my good friends (Kayla and Avery) and one of their moms (Karen) and the other one’s boyfriend (Connor), so I’m pretty excited. My parents have only been able to come to a handful of competitions so far, so this will be really great.”

Kozun, the only member of the national sitting volleyball team who is from Saskatchewan, is currently in Edmonton training, as the team has come together from coast to coast for a couple of weeks in preparation for Paris. Throughout the year, Kozun regularly works with a pair of USask alumni: physiotherapist Bruce Craven, who has served as an associate clinical professor in USask’s School of Physical Therapy and a sessional lecturer in the College of Kinesiology; as well as former USask Huskies volleyball player and now assistant coach Emily Humbert.

“Bruce is great and I train quite a bit in Saskatoon with him, and Emily has helped me out a lot, too,” said Kozun, who doesn’t wear a prosthetic limb while playing sitting volleyball, but does use one for walking, another for playing slow-pitch and standing volleyball, another for snowboarding, and one for swimming. “My decentralized training was with Emily and she is really good and they have both prepared me really well for this.”

Kozun also credits former Huskie women’s basketball player Erica Gavel – a USask kinesiology graduate who now serves as the chair of the Canadian Paralympic Athletes’ Council and will be attending the Paris Paralympics as an athlete ambassador – for getting her into her new sport shortly after Kozun’s accident.

“She opened a door for me,” said Kozun, who was visited by Gavel after being released from hospital and was recovering at home following her amputation surgery in 2015. “I had never heard of sitting volleyball before I talked to her. She played on the women’s wheelchair team and they won gold in Lima (at the 2019 Parapan Am Games) when I was there as well (winning bronze).”

From representing Canada on the international sports stage to serving as an unofficial ambassador for Para sport when speaking to youngers in schools, Kozun has embraced the idea of being a role model for the next generation. In 2018, she was honoured with a Certificate of Appreciation from the mayor of the City of Melfort for her work as a safety ambassador with The War Amps program, and earlier this year was inducted into the Hall of Fame at her former high school, Melfort and Unit Comprehensive Collegiate.

“I went to grad and said a few words there and got my picture on the wall, so it was pretty special,” said Kozun. “I enjoy speaking to kids and there are times they come up and talk to me after. And even at the Hall of Fame induction, I had done a few talks at the elementary school there, and one of the girls came up and hugged me and said, ‘You won’t remember me but you came to talk to us at school once and it was great!’ So that was pretty special.”

Kozun is also happy to have put her education into practice, working for Richardson Pioneer as an agribusiness associate after graduating from USask in 2022 with a Diploma in Agribusiness.

“I give a lot of credit to my managers, they are really good for me and support me playing volleyball,” said Kozun. “I work with customers and I’m pretty new to the role, but it is good. The university has a great ag program, so I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to work in agribusiness.”

For Kozun, the business at hand right now is final preparations for the Paralympics, with just a couple of weeks left before the team heads overseas to Paris on Aug. 18, with their first match scheduled for Aug. 28. All games will be streamed live on CBC Gem.

“We aren’t used to playing in front of large crowds, so this will be very exciting because we don’t get to do that very often,” said Kozun. “And if we win a medal, it will be awesome.”