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For a guy who came into this world without feet or ankles, Scarborough's Adam Lancia certainly has an upbeat 'glass-is-half-full' take on what life has served him.

A graduate of Birchmount Park Collegiate, Lancia, 28, is one of two Scarborough athletes - Abdi Dini is the other - representing Canada on the national wheelchair basketball team at the Paralympic Games in Beijing next month.

Lancia, who also contends with the fact his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) didn't form in either knee, was a member of the Canadian Olympic squad that captured gold four years ago in Athens.

His condition, fibular hemimelia, has proven a blessing in disguise, he says.

He refuses to imply that his condition has set him back in any respect.

"It's not really even a bad situation, it's given me a plenty of opportunity to travel the world and meet people. I've been to Japan, Brazil three times, Moscow, all over Europe, Mexico City," he said. "If I hadn't been disabled I wouldn't have been playing wheelchair basketball."

It was many moons ago, 11 years ago in fact, that Variety Village's Archie Allison spotted the Scarborough native. Allison, a fixture at the Village, was conducting a War Amps of Canada seminar in Ottawa and saw that the paralympian lived in Scarborough.

He invited Lancia, who was 18 at the time and attending the conference with his mother, to visit the Kingston Road athletic complex.

"I went there a couple of weeks later and loved it. It's been nine or 10 years."

The rest is history.

The Olympic team, a veteran-laden side that sees the Scarborough native as one of the younger members, consists of some of the top players in the world, next to the No. 1-ranked Americans.

Much of the team attended the University of Illinois under national team head coach Mike Frogley, who also runs the university program south of the border.

"We competed against some of the top players in the world together there for four years," said Lancia, pointing out that it will go a long way in the Canadian team's bid to three-peat as gold medalists.

The team is clearly shooting for another gold medal, but it will need "to play a full 40-minute game" there, he said, something, though it is quite capable, it is yet to do.

"We haven't been able to execute at the level that we can execute at," he said. "If we can do that, I'm sure it will put us where we want to be.

"We definitely want to peak at the right time, there's no question about that. As a veteran team that is something we're a little more mindful of than some other teams," he said.

As for Dini, a new Canadian from Somalia who took to the game in 1996 and landed a spot on the national program two years ago, this year marks his debut at the Paralympic Games.

Dini was injured by a roadside bomb in his home country.

Both leave for Beijing Saturday.

The 10-team Olympic wheelchair basketball Paralympic event takes place at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium and Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium Sept. 7 to 16.