Touching tribute pushing Ottawa paddler closer to her Paralympic dream

Even the threat of a thunderstorm can’t stop Brianna Hennessy from getting in the water for practice.

The Ottawa paddler is weeks away from her second Paralympics, and this time, a podium finish is well within her reach.

“I think we have come a long way since the first games,” she said. “We were very new at that time and we have had a lot of time to work on things since.”

Hennessy placed fifth in the VL2 and eighth in the KL1 para canoe events at the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games. Since then, she’s drastically improved and won 10 world medals — an impressive feat for any athlete, especially one who has only been in the sport for about four years.

“I still considers myself to be the new kid on the block,” she said. “Everyone else has at least a decade in or more, but it’s been a wild ride because I grew up in contact sports and never did anything in the water.”

Having been an athlete all her life, Hennessy is most comfortable in contact sports, but an accident in 2014 changed the course of her athletic career forever. She was struck by a speeding cab and was paralyzed, but ten years later, she is thriving after falling in love with para canoe and kayak during the early days of the pandemic.

“I didn’t even know I could swim after my accident, so it was quite scary in the start. But Joel and I went head on into it and given it everything I’ve got,” she said about the work her and coach Joel Hazzan have put in over the years.

Hazzan and Hennessy are on the water multiple times a day and spend much of the year in the USA or in Europe where training is possible year round.

“It’s been pretty remarkable how fast she has picked it up,” Hazzan said. “The acceleration to the top has been pretty fast.”

So fast, that Hennessy is now a strong medal contender in Paris and when she hits the water in France, she’ll have a special paddle pushing her closer to that dream.

“My mom was my best friend in the entire world. She was my wonder woman,” Hennessy said. “I feel like when I am going to be there I will be the closest to her.”

Hennessy’s mom, Norma, passed away in 2023. To remember her and her spirit, Hennessy’s coach got a friend to design a special paddle to use in Paris. The design displays a cardinal, a bird Hennessy’s family has long used to signify lost loved ones, a W for Wonder Woman and a picture of Ramsay, Norma’s therapy cat who died of cancer months after Norma passed away.

“I am going to have her right there with me in my heart, in every breath I take and every stroke I take down that course,” Hennessy said.

That is exactly what Hazzan wanted when he surprised her with the gift.

“It was kind of like, ‘how do we take all these things and bring them together and have her have that feeling that everyone is with her, that their spirits are there pushing her on,'” Hazzan said. “That’s the whole goal to have the spirit of mom coming down the course.”

Hennessy hits the water at the Paralympics during the first week of September.