Eastern Ontario is well-represented on the Canadian team at the Paris Paralympic Games, with 12 athletes in total.
As more Paralympic events kick off, watch out for these local competitors who’ve spoken to CBC as they put their skills to the test on the international stage.
Trinity Lowthian — wheelchair fencer
22-year-old Trinity Lowthian from Ottawa will compete in wheelchair fencing Sept. 6 for her Paralympic debut.
“If you can think in your head of regular fencing, then mix that up with thumb wrestling,” said Trinity Lowthian to the CBC’s Robyn Miller, describing the sport she has dedicated the last two years of her life to.
Her career began strong in 2022 when she joined the Ottawa Fencing Club.
Back in her first training session, Lowthian’s coaches asked her what her goal was. She responded: reach the Paralympics. They told her they could get her there.
The same year, she won medals at the Americas Championships.
In 2023 and 2024, Lowthian continued to compete and win medals there and at worlds.
Paris 2024 will be Lowthian’s first Paralympic Games. She will compete in women’s sabre on Tuesday and women’s épée on Friday, both in class B.
Brianna Hennessy — Para canoe
After Ottawa Para canoeist Brianna Hennessy lost her mother last year, her coach Joel Hazzan had a custom paddle made to help bring her mother with her to the 2024 Paris Games.
Brianna Hennessy is a talented canoeist attending her second Paralympics this year. She qualified for her first Games in Tokyo fewer than two years after she took up the sport.
The daughter of two football players, Hennessy grew up playing contact sports such as rugby, hockey and boxing. After she was hit by a driver, she turned to Para canoe. She has also played wheelchair rugby and hopes to reach the same level in that sport.
She told CBC Radio’s All In A Day that, if they brought the brand-new sport of kayak cross — which allows you to come in contact with the other racers — to the Paralympics, she would compete in a heartbeat.
In Paris, Hennessy will compete Friday in the women’s kayak single 200-metre race in class KL1 and the women’s va’a single 200-metre race in class VL2.
Bianca Borgella — Para athletics
The Ottawa sprinter, world silver medallist and University of Ottawa neuroscience student races in her first Paralympics in Paris about three years after she says she started taking track more seriously.
Sprinter Bianca Borgella is competing in the Paralympics for the first time, but she already has a decent medal haul to back her up.
“After representing Canada for the first time at [the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships] and getting my medals at my first world championships, I’m now walking into it a lot more calm,” she told All In A Day’s Alan Neal.
Borgella also set two Canadian records in her class: 100 metres in 12.16 seconds and 200 metres in 25 seconds flat.
That wasn’t even her first time breaking those records: she had already done that in 2022, when she set Canadian records in the 100-, 200-, and 400-metre races at the Canadian Track and Field Championships.
In Paris, she will compete in the women’s 100-metre race in class T13 on Tuesday.
Whitney Bogart, Amy Burk and Emma Reinke — goalball
The Canadian goalball team features three athletes who live in Ottawa: Whitney Bogart, Amy Burk and Emma Reinke.
The team is coming from an intense competition in Chile in November, where they played a tense game against the U.S. at the Santiago 2023 Parapan American Games.
They scored 4-3 and won gold, which qualified them for the Paralympics.
“It proved to us what kind of team we are and what we can do,” Bogart said of that win on CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning. “It’s just skyrocketed our motivation and confidence and preparation to the lead-in to Paris.”
Ottawa Morning10:56Ottawa goalball athletes in Paris
Half of Canada’s goalball team at the 2024 Paralympic Games live here in the 613. We caught up with two of them – Amy Burk and Whitney Bogart – before the games began.
For Burk, Paris will be her fifth Paralympic Games. It’s the second for Reinke and the fourth for Bogart.
The goalball games have already begun, but they will continue through the medal games on Thursday.
Anne Fergusson — sitting volleyball
The Carleton Place athlete is looking to improve her team’s 4th-place finish in the last Paralympics.
Anne Fergusson is attending her second Paralympics after her debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games. She was also an alternate player at Rio 2016 — the first time Canada’s sitting volleyball team qualified — but said that doesn’t count.
Fergusson told CBC’s Robyn Miller she started as a standing volleyball player in high school. Her coaches there turned her on to sitting volleyball and she was invited to try it out at a camp.
“I loved it, but [it was] very intimidating,” she said. “It’s a very fast and difficult sport, but I was immediately enthralled by what my teammates were able to do and excited to learn more.”
Fergusson joined the Canadian sitting volleyball team in 2013 and continued to hone her skills. At the 2022 World ParaVolley Sitting Volleyball World Championships, she helped Canada earn the silver medal.
Sitting volleyball matches will continue through to Saturday, when the bronze and gold medal matches will be played.
Abi Tripp — Para swimmer
Abi Tripp can boast an impressive history of competing in major swimming competitions. Her first major competition was the 2015 Toronto Parapan American Games.
She has broken Canadian records for 200-metre and 100-metre races and won silver and bronze medals at various competitions.
Most recently, Tripp won silver in the 100-metre breaststroke in class S8 at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships.
9:35Kingston’s Abi Tripp will represent Canada at the Paralympics for the third time
The 23-year-old swimmer calls in from Paris ahead of the Games.
Tripp will compete in the women’s 400-metre freestyle in class S8 on Wednesday and the women’s 100-metre breaststroke in class SB7 the following day.
She told All In A Day’s Alan Neal that the freestyle race will be her “break the ice” event, since she really enjoys it and it falls before she competes with the breaststroke, something she’s been working on for months.