| Denis Lapalme | |
| Fullname: | Denis Orval Lapalme |
| Sport: | Paralympic athletics Paralympic swimming |
| Disability Class: | C1 |
| Birth Date: | 29 April 1959 |
| Birth Place: | Timmins, Ontario, Canada |
Denis Orval Lapalme (April 29, 1959 – November 1, 2021) was a Canadian amputee athlete and actor, most noted as a competitor and medalist at the Paralympic Games.[1]
Born in Timmins, Ontario, Lapalme lost both legs in a train accident in childhood.[2] As an adult he was based principally in Ottawa, where he has worked as a civil servant.[2]
He competed in swimming at the 1976 Summer Paralympics in Toronto, winning a bronze medal in the men's 100-metre freestyle and a silver in the men's 100-metre breaststroke.[1]
At the 1980 Summer Paralympics in Arnhem, Netherlands, he competed in both track and swimming, winning gold medals in the men's 100-metre sprint, javelin and 100-meter backstroke, a silver medal in the 100-metre breaststroke, and a bronze medal in the 100-metre freestyle.[1]
Lapalme competed on the men's wheelchair basketball team at both the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea[3] and the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona, Spain.[4] but the team did not medal at either event.
He also competed nationally and internationally in other track and wheelchair basketball competitions below the Paralympic level,[5] including at the IWAS World Games in 1979.[6]
Although no longer active as a Paralympic competitor after 1992, he remained involved in sports as late as the early 2010s as captain of the Ottawa Sledgehammers, the city's sledge hockey team.[7] Lapalme died on November 1, 2021, in Hull, Quebec at the age of 62 of brain cancer.[8]
Following the end of his Paralympic career he was cast in his first acting role, as Jerome of Sandy Cove in Phil Comeau's 1994 film Jerome's Secret.[9] He subsequently had small parts in the films Bleeders and Two Lovers and a Bear, and an episode of the television series .