BRIANNA HENNESSY
Sport: Para Canoe
Events: VL2 Women’s V’aa Canoe 200 metres, KL1 Women’s Kayak 200 metres
Age: 39
Local Club: Ottawa River Canoe Club / Ottawa Stingers Wheelchair Rugby Club
Second Paralympics
VIEW BRIANNA’S COMPETITION SCHEDULE HERE.
By Jackson Starr
From a life-altering injury, to rediscovering her love of sport, to finding a new sport during the pandemic, to losing her mom, Brianna Hennessy’s path to the Paris Paralympics has frequently been exceptionally difficult, but the 39-year-old paddler has found many sources of inspiration to keep pushing forward.
“A bit of stubbornness, for sure,” Hennessy outlines. “The Irish fight in me. I have that Hennessy, and Moore as the last name on my mom’s side. It’s the fight of the Irish, for me that for sure means not giving up and being headstrong, and having love around me to support me.
“Committing to my goals, and just filling my heart with that passion – that’s the way that I keep myself going, even on those harder days.”
Hennessy is heading into her second Paralympic Games in Paris, which promises to offer an entirely different experience than her first. Not only was COVID a dominating factor, as it was for all the Paralympians in competition at the time, it was also only one year removed from when Hennessy joined the sport.
A champion athlete in hockey, rugby, boxing and ball hockey before she was struck by a taxicab in 2014, Hennessy was first introduced to wheelchair rugby during rehab at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre.
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Read More: After overcoming a tragedy, Brianna Hennessy has set her sights on the Paralympics
She gained success and distinctions as a wheelchair rugby player while competing mostly with and against men.
But when COVID hit, her Ottawa Stingers teammate (and fellow Paris 2024 Paralympian) Patrice Dagenais suggested Hennessy try para canoe since the pandemic forced the shutdown of team activities.
So Hennessy joined the Ottawa River Canoe Club, and the rest is history.
A year removed from trying a water sport for the first time, Hennessy qualified to represent Canada at the Tokyo Paralympics.
“When she said the Paralympics were something she’d be interested in, I kind of looked at her like, ‘I don’t do miracles,’” ORCC and now Team Canada coach Joel Hazzan recounted before those Games. “But clearly, she does.”
Hennessy wound up finishing fifth and just over one second away from a podium position in the women’s VL2 Va’a canoe event, which has become her specialty, though she’s a strong competitor in KL1 kayak as well.
With a little more experience under her belt, Hennessy’s become a regular medallist at World Cup and World Championships events. With five medals out of six World Championships races between 2022 and 2024, her objectives for these Games are different from the last.
“Even though we have been attaining some podium positions for Canada in World Cups and World Champs over these past few years, this year was the first time I feel like that I’ve said out loud that I want to set that as a goal to podium for Canada,” Hennessy notes. “That’s (a) realization for me, because I like to stay super humble, and just shut my mouth, put my head down, and just work my ass off.”
Competing in sport both before and after her injury has required an immense amount of internal drive, but it’s what Hennessy loves doing, she explains.
“It’s my purpose in life,” underlines Hennessy, who played for a Canadian women’s wheelchair rugby team at an event in Paris last year.
“It’s my ongoing rehab, for my para sport, but the biggest part of my identity has always been being an elite athlete,” she adds. “That’s where I feel at home. That’s where I feel the most familiar. That’s where I feel like I can be myself and, no matter what my disabilities are, I feel like that’s my time where my abilities can still shine.”
There are also many areas of psychological development which have helped craft Hennessy into the Paralympian she is today, especially in big moments like before a race.
“I’m a big advocate for mental health, and as much as we go through all this physical training, there’s the mental aspect of sport and mental performance as well,” highlights the Gloucester High School and University of Ottawa grad. “When you come down to those moments where there’s all these uncontrollables, you try to focus on the controllables, try to calm yourself and conserve your energy.
“There’s three ‘Rs’: routine, ritual and ridiculousness. The ridiculousness side is: if anyone knows me outside of sport, I’m this class clown that’s super bubbly, that’s always laughing, making jokes and super extroverted. But then when it’s game time, it’s a whole different side of me. I’m super intense.
“Part of my routine is just getting dressed or laying out my outfits, reading some things that I wrote, some words of affirmation to calm me down and just to make sure that I believe in myself, and that my confidence levels are up.
“My ritual, part of that is I always light a candle the night before my events to summon Fujian, the Wind God, and to ask him for his help to give me my wind. That’s something that I do as my ritual every time, and then I just chill. I have a candle lit there, I listen to my music and meditation music, just to chill out and to calm my heartbeat.”
Hennessy credits a big part of her success in sport to her parents, who were both standout athletes themselves.
“I grew up on the football field, learning at a very young age what a team was,” Hennessy recalls. “As a child, I was taught that I’m not the centre of the universe.
“There’s sharing and caring. Our family would take care of each other. We were our biggest supporters of each other, and I learned to sort of look outside myself at a very young age.”
A combination of mental drive, toughness, passion and the support and upbringing of her family have fuelled Hennessy into the athlete and person she is today. When her mother Norma died early in 2023, it rocked Hennessy, but she’s trying to harness her mom’s spirit in sport and life.
Hennessy calls her mom “my Wonder Woman,” and the canoe paddle she’ll use in Paris, which her coach helped her craft, pays tribute to that character.
“I get emotional just because we’ve all been through this,” she says of her family. “My dad’s going to be there, my brother’s going to be there, my aunt, my mom’s only sister, and her kids and their kids are going to be there. We’ve got about a dozen family members coming.
“We’ve all been through a lot with our grieving, and we still are grieving. Having their support there is everything to me in those moments.
“It’s been so hard to keep everything together, with my heart smashed into a million pieces. My mom was my rock, my best friend, the pillar of my life that kept everything together.
“Just having them show me their love and support in those moments is everything to me, and I’m hoping it’s that extra push to do something super special.”
COMPETITION SCHEDULE:
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