Four Canoe-Kayak sprinters highlight the U of O’s 2024 Olympic contingent
Olympics
Three current University of Ottawa students and two alumni are set to compete at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, including a trio who will compete as three of four members of the Canadian 500-meter kayak sprint team. All Gee-Gees will be competing for their first time.
Third-year translational and molecular medicine student Toshka Besharah-Hrebacka will join Gee-Gees alumnus Natalie Davison (nursing, class of 2015) and Courtney Scott (human kinetics, class of 2014) on the kayak sprint team. The three Gee-Gees, along with Halifax-native Riley Melanson, qualified for the Olympics at the 2023 world championships.
First-year environmental studies student Sophia Jensen — described as a “rising star of Canadian paddling” — will also make her Olympic debut in the discipline, in the individual 200-metre canoe sprint event. The 22-year-old was born in Edmonton, but moved to Chelsea, Q.C. — just across the Ottawa River — as a child, where she began competing in canoeing events at the age of 13.
Photos: Canadian Olympic Committee. Image: Andrew Wilimek/Fulcrum
23-year-old Eliezer Adjibi will round out the Gee-Gees athletic contingent in Paris. The fourth-year general studies student moved to Ottawa from Benin when he was in Grade 7, and only began sprinting training after he had completed Grade 11.
Fast forward about five years, and Adjibi had come within two centimetres of beating Olympic gold medallist and 2024 Canadian flag bearer Andre de Grasse in the 100-metre sprint finals at the Canadian Track and Field Olympic trials in Montreal on June 28. Adjibi will compete in the men’s 4×100-metre relay — where Canada is set to defend their silver medal from Tokyo.
Though some sports have already commenced, the 2024 Olympic opening ceremony will begin at 1:30 p.m. ET on Friday. CBC, TSN, and Sportsnet will broadcast the games, with CBC providing free streaming and on demand coverage on CBC Gem and YouTube.
Coaches and Staff
Four coaches and staff with links to the U of O are also in Paris for the games. In his last Olympic games for the foreseeable future, incoming women’s rugby head coach Jack Hanratty will serve as head coach for the women’s 7s team. Hanratty will join the Gee-Gees in 2025.
Four-time Olympian and Canadian fencing legend alumnus Sherraine Schalm will take on the role of head coach for Canada’s fencing team. Before retiring from the sport in 2013, the Alberta native earned two degrees from the U of O and also competed on the Gee-Gees fencing team.
Penny Werthner earned both a masters of science and a doctorate from the U of O before serving as the school of human kinetics director and associate dean from 2000–2012. Werthner also competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics in the 1500-metre event. She will serve as a mental performance coach for both the canoe-kayak team and the athletics team.
Longtime Gee-Gees women’s volleyball public address announcer Daniel Robitaille will serve as a technical official in the weightlifting discipline. Also a U of O graduate, Robitaille served as coach of the Canadian national program from 1981-1999 after his competing himself in the 1970s.
Paralympics
A few weeks after the Olympics wrap up following the women’s gold medal basketball game on Aug. 11, two current students and one U of O alumnus will compete at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympics.
Bianca Borgella will enter the Paralympics as a podium favourite in both the 100-metre and 200-metre sprints in the T13 class (visually impaired). Born with Leber congenital amaurosis resulting in severe vision loss, the 21-year-old trained with the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club growing up after moving to Canada as a child.
One year ago in Paris, the biomedical sciences and neurology student won silver in the 200-metre spring and bronze in the 100-metre sprint at the Para athletics world championships, setting Canadian records in the T13 class in the process.
Before winning the 100-metre sprint Para finals at the Bell Track and Field Trials in Montreal on June 28, Borgella competed in the able-bodied women’s 100-metre sprint — and finished with a time of 11.97 seconds, fast enough to qualify her for the Olympics.
Fourth-year nutrition sciences student Trinity Lowthian competes on not just one, but two Gee-Gees teams. In addition to the fencing team, the Ottawa native is also a part of the Gee-Gees nordic ski team.
The 22-year-old played a variety of sports growing up, such as competitive swimming, water polo, triathlon, and biathlon. However, Lowthian was told by doctors in 2018 that her autonomic nervous system was inexplicably compromised, forcing her to complete her high school education in the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO).
In May 2022 she decided to take up fencing, and began competing as a Para fencing athlete with the Ottawa Fencing Club. After just a few months of practice, Lowthian won four medals at the Pan American Championships in Brazil.
In 2024, Lowthian won gold in both the sabre and épée events — which she will compete in in Paris — at the Americas Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil, adding a bronze in the foil event for good measure.
Rounding out the trio of Gee-Gees heading to Paris for the Paralympics is Brianna Hennessey, who graduated from the U of O in 2008 with a degree in human kinetics. Hennessey also played rugby for the Gee-Gees, along with ‘AA’ ice hockey, ball hockey, and boxing — in which she was a provincial amateur champion.
In 2024, Hennessey was struck by a speeding cab driver in Toronto at the age of 30 and is now a diagnosed tetraplegic after regaining some mobility in her upper body. Introduced to wheelchair rugby two years after her injury, Hennessey initially competed against mostly men in the sport, and now represents Canada internationally.
During the pandemic, Hennessey took up Para canoe, and would ultimately make her debut at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics — less than two years after picking up the sport. The Ottawa native now competes in both canoe and kayak events.
Hennessy told CBC’s Zack Smart in 2023 that competing as an athlete means much more than medals to her. “That’s where I have my passion and my purpose to get out of bed every single day of my life now, to just feel a little bit like my old self. It’s the only time I can feel kind of alive again or normal,” said Hennessy at the time.
CBC will also stream the Paralympics, which begin on Aug. 28.
