A wheelchair-bound Ottawa athlete can chalk up another accomplishment. He now has been featured in a national magazine.

Black-and-white photos and a four-minute video augment a short essay for TIME magazine that tells the story of Nick Scott, 30, Ottawa, and his struggle to become one of the top wheelchair bodybuilders in the world. Approached last March by a TIME magazine photographer, Scott said he was happy to tell them his story and the story of the sport he loves.

A wheelchair-bound Ottawa athlete can chalk up another accomplishment. He now has been featured in a national magazine.

Black-and-white photos and a four-minute video augment a short essay for TIME magazine that tells the story of Nick Scott, 30, Ottawa, and his struggle to become one of the top wheelchair bodybuilders in the world. Approached last March by a TIME magazine photographer, Scott said he was happy to tell them his story and the story of the sport he loves.

“We met up and they interviewed me and it went in the direction of where originally they wanted to do a story on my life, but I asked them if they would do a story on wheelchair bodybuilding instead and they accepted it,” Scott, nicknamed The Beast, said.

Eager to shed light on the little-known sport of wheelchair bodybuilding, Scott said he was excited about the opportunity to allow the TIME staff access to his passion. Scott played a key role in the development of the first-ever competition for the certified International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) Pro Wheelchair Bodybuilders. He said he hopes the additional exposure through the TIME project will help more people become aware of the sport and show their support.

The project, which began last March, was posted on TIME’s website — http://lightbox.time.com/2012/10/15/wheelchair-bodybuilders/?iid=lb-gal-viewagn#1 — earlier this week. Since then, Scott said, he has received several emails about how his story has inspired people.

“Everybody is just really positive about the response because they never that knew there was such a thing, and it really opens their eyes that there’s really no excuses,” Scott, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a 1998 automobile wreck, said. Scott was 16 at the time of the crash that changed his life.

The TIME photographer, Lauren Fleishman, employed the use of shadows and light to illustrate the intense sport of wheelchair bodybuilding. The black-and-white images show many bodybuilders in various stages of the bodybuilding competition, from pre-show preparation to posing practice to the awards ceremony. The photo essay was meant to show bodybuilding in a new light, Fleishman said in the essay.

“In showing a different side to it, it’s a way of connecting people, a way of changing their perceptions about the sport,” Fleishman said in the essay.

The project documents Scott and several other wheelchair bodybuilders at the 2012 IFBB Pro Wheelchair championships Oct. 13 in Houston, an event open only to Scott and the dozen other men who have qualified as pros. Scott took second place in the event, making him the second best wheelchair bodybuilder in the world.

After seeing the project, Scott said he was very pleased with how more than six months’ worth of work turned out.  

“I loved the video, and I love how everything came about. They did an amazing job,” Scott said. “I remember the morning I saw it I called her at like 6 o’clock my time, which is like 7 o’clock their time, and we talked and I told her my thoughts and that I was so blown away by everything.”