TRINITY LOWTHIAN
Sport: Wheelchair Fencing
Events: Women’s Category B Sabre, Women’s Category B Epée
Age: 22
Residence: Stittsville
Local Clubs: Ottawa Fencing, University of Ottawa Gee-Gees Nordic Ski Team
First Paralympics
VIEW TRINITY’S COMPETITION SCHEDULE HERE.
By Jackson Starr
Trinity Lowthian has risen to the top of her craft, and quickly.
The 22-year-old wheelchair fencer from Stittsville is entering her first Paralympic Games with a slew of success already in her newfound sport, which she joined just two years ago.
Lowthian spent most of her final years of high school in the hospital and was eventually diagnosed with autoimmune autonomic neuropathy, which impacts her digestive system and eventually forced her into a wheelchair.
Read More: Trinity Lowthian hitting the target in wheelchair fencing, despite major health issues
Having previously participated in numerous sports including water polo and biathlon, Lowthian was keen to again find an athletic challenge once her health had stabilized sufficiently. She found it at Ottawa Fencing, and rapidly developed into not only a competitive wheelchair fencer, but a fearsome talent on the global stage.
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Without many parasport athletes to compete with domestically, Lowthian jumped right into international competition as she continued to learn the intricacies of each fencing weapon – foil, sabre and epée.
She excelled at a collection of Americas, under-23 and world senior championships from 2022-2024, most recently earning two gold medals and a bronze at the 2024 Americas competition.
“I think part of it has been the great coaching that I’ve had,” Lowthian highlights. “The knowledge that my coaches have brought to the table, but also having an athletic background and taking that part of my life with me into this has really helped.”
Lowthian has quickly immersed herself in the local and national fencing community as well. Along with being a high-level international athlete and studying nutrition/food science at the University of Ottawa, Lowthian leads the new wheelchair fencing program at TRYumph Academy, which is owned by her coach at Ottawa Fencing, Paul ApSimon.
“I honestly don’t know how I manage all of it,” Lowthian smiles. “It’s a lot to juggle at once, but I like to do as much as I can, especially when I’m feeling good physically.
“Just knowing that for so long when I was in the hospital, I really couldn’t do these 10 billion things, and it was something that I really wanted to do. So now that I have the opportunity, and I’m not in the hospital, it’s kind of nice to be able to do as much as I can, while I still can do it.”
It takes a village though, adds Lowthian, who usually practices against local fencers without regular mobility restrictions who strap themselves into a wheelchair to train with her.
“The community that’s been the most important to me (has) been the Ottawa fencing community here, which is all the other able-bodied athletes,” she highlights. “The Ottawa fencing community has really, really rallied around me and become a family. It’s been great how much they supported me.”
The long road – to first get better, and then rise into a high-performance international athlete – is one Lowthian has charged onto swiftly. That she’s now set to compete at her first Paralympic Games within just two years of starting her journey is a feat that baffles even Lowthian.
“I absolutely can’t believe it,” she underlines. “I never would have imagined this. I was talking with one of the healthcare providers who cared for me when I was at CHEO, and she absolutely could not believe that I’d gotten here, especially in the last two years. It’s just out of this world. I don’t think I’ve fully wrapped my head around how far I’ve come and that I’m actually at this point.”
ApSimon, who’s coached fencing for almost 40 years, has worked with Lowthian every step of the way. He too finds Lowthian’s remarkable emergence tough to believe, though he saw signs of her potential from the get-go.
“Right from day one, it was pretty evident that Trinity had this force, this fight within her, and that is not something that is teachable in fencing,” ApSimon indicates. “She perseveres. She’s a fighter.
“And I’ve said this to her several times in the last weeks in training, that nobody at the Paralympics, wants to fence Trinity, because regardless of who’s in front of her, she would give them that fight and that battle that will make defeating Trinity very difficult.”
Lowthian has also kept ApSimon’s international fencing coaching fires burning. He was previously the coach of the Canadian women’s foil team – which included Eleanor Harvey, who won Canada’s first-ever fencing medal at the Paris Olympics – before handing off those duties to Alex Martin, who is married to another Ottawa Fencing product, Tokyo Olympian Kelleigh Ryan.
Lowthian jumped onto the scene less than a year after the last Olympic cycle was complete and has helped invigorate the local fencing community to have one of its own representing Ottawa and Canada on the international stage.
“Having an athlete, a role model like Trinity in the club is fantastic for her younger generation,” ApSimon explains. “They all recognize, one, the challenges that she has, and two, how much she perseveres. Really huge benefit for them to see the challenges that she has.
“You’ll never hear Trinity complain about things that are out of her control. This is a huge asset for our athletes, because oftentimes we take a lot of things for granted. Right now, having Trinity as a role model has helped the whole community learn.”
In Paris, Lowthian will be competing in the women’s category B sabre and epée competitions. She enters the Games ranked eighth in the world for epée and 16th in sabre.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting other para athletes, especially ones who are around my own age and who I can be friends with, the wheelchair fencing community, maybe the other Canadian athletes around my own age who have gone through similar experiences, and really connect with them, because I haven’t had that opportunity yet,” Lowthian says.
“I really want to just experience it, take it all in, and enjoy everything, but then also perform at my 100%, and I know if I do that, I won’t have any regrets, and it will definitely be a performance to be proud of.”
COMPETITION SCHEDULE:
In the week leading in to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, the Ottawa Sports Pages will be profiling participating local athletes. From Aug. 28-Sept. 8, we’ll be providing daily Ottawa at the Paralympics coverage via our free email newsletter. Sign up below to follow along!
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