A 22-year-old student and a 32-year-old registered nurse from Ottawa are two of 12 athletes who will be representing Canada at the Olympics in just over a month.
Toshka Besharah-Hrebacka and Natalie Davison qualified for the Olympics over the weekend at the trials held in Montreal. Both will be competing in the women’s canoe/kayaking sprint event in Paris.
The pair will be making their Olympic debuts in the women’s K-4 500 metre and will join Pickering, Ont.’s, Courtney Stott and Riley Melanson of Dartmouth, N.S. The four competed together at the 2023 World Championships and at Santiago 2023 where they won silver.
On top of competing at the highest level for kayaking, Besharah-Hrebacka is also a student at the University of Ottawa studying biomedical science.
Eventually she would like to become a sports medicine doctor, her bio on the Team Canada website reads.
Davison debuted at the Canoe Sprint World Championships in 2017 and has competed since. She helped the team secure an Olympic spot in the women’s K-4 500 metre race for Paris 2024 at the 2023 Canoe Sprint World Championships.
On top of being an athlete, Davison works as a volunteer registered nurse at her family’s medical practice. She is an alumni of UOttawa and Algonquin College.