By Dan Plouffe
Moments after winning her second world junior title within the span of 40 minutes, canoe paddler Isabel Lowry was down on the dock, arms outstretched behind her head, receiving CPR from teammate Madeleine Beauregard.
Don’t worry, it was all a joke, and once Beauregard delivered a mock shock to Lowry with her imaginary defibrillator, the bubbly and energetic 18-year-old bounced back up and summoned some more energy to cheer on her Canadian teammates at the ICF Sprint Junior and U23 World Championships in Dartmouth, N.S.
“I’m so exhausted,” Lowry laughed upon completing her mission. “My hands are shaking, but I’m just overwhelmed with happiness. My God, I’m just so happy to be here and to do that. Same as last year, but it means so much to me, and to do it in front of a home crowd means even more.”
Lowry’s back-to-back victories on the morning of July 5 in the C1 U18 women’s 200 metres and C4 women’s 500 m replicated her performance from the 2025 worlds in Portugal. She won her solo event in Dartmouth by a tenth of a second over Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Vozniuk and then had to quickly jump in to the bigger boat for the start of her next race 40 minutes later.
Competing alongside fellow 2025 U18 world champion Beauregard of the Rideau Canoe Club, her Carleton Place Canoe Club teammate Abbigail Haines and Halifax’s Victoria Tran, Lowry came back down the Lake Banook course to comfortably claim her second gold medal with a win by 1.97 seconds ahead of second-place China.
“First of all, I need to catch my breath,” recounted Lowry as she replayed the small window of time between her triumphs. “And then there’s so many different emotions coming off of the first race, and then needing to bring myself back onto the ground just to do it all over again – it’s definitely a lot to manage.
“But to have such a great team behind me, like my coaches and my teammates, the credit really goes to them. I couldn’t have done it without them, and it just means a lot that I have so many people there to help me win both of them.”
Her C4 partners were instrumental of course, and their camaraderie shone through as they celebrated together with hugs and cheers, and then showed off their acting abilities with the resuscitation demo. Lowry has got to know her teammates very well, whether from paddling around the nation’s capital or while with Team Ontario or Team Canada.
“We’re all just such a close group of friends, and I think that really helps make us such a strong crew,” signalled Lowry, who went to Italy for a pre-season training camp and spent three weeks on Lake Banook before the worlds. “Being able to train together, yes, that’s big, but also to have such a great bond outside of the boat really, really helps.”
Last year, Lowry won a third gold medal at the junior worlds in the C2 women’s 200 m, but this year Haines was selected for that event alongside Tran. The result was once again golden, and Lowry was thrilled to see the pair crowned champions again.
“Abbie’s one of my best friends and I was just so happy that she could experience that the same as I did,” Lowry said of her fellow graduate from Notre Dame Catholic High School in Carleton Place. “To hear the announcer say Canada are defending world champions, then for her to do it again, it was just so awesome to have that for Canada and also for Abbie. I know how hard she works for this and I’m so proud of her and all of her accomplishments.”
Lowry said there was a great deal of added stress this year preparing for the world championships as the paddler who was expected to win, but that it was ultimately the perfect setting to achieve that objective on home water.
“To do this in front of Canada, this is a really big deal for me. I can’t believe I did it again. I’m just so, so excited and so blessed,” added Lowry, who got a boost from the Canadian crowd. “I heard them on the line, our team over there, they had the drums going, and I was like, ‘I gotta do this.’
“That was just so amazing. I just really feel like everyone came together and I could feel there was a whole team behind me. I just can’t put into words how happy I am.”
Lowry will get to frequently replay those fond memories from Lake Banook soon enough. After an extra year at home to train with her Carleton Place coach and work on her family’s farm near Almonte, she plans to move there full-time when she enrolls at Dalhousie University.
Rideau’s Toshka Besharah wins repeat U23 title
Toshka Besharah has had school at the forefront of her mind this season, but the Rideau paddler similarly earned a repeat world title in Dartmouth.
Shortly after making her Olympic debut at the Paris 2024 Games, Besharah was back in the classroom working towards her biomedical sciences degree in translational and molecular medicine at the University of Ottawa. This year, the 23-year-old made the reverse transition, collecting her diploma the same week just before her national team trials event.
She’ll soon be moving out west to pursue a kinesiology masters degree at the University of Victoria.
“I can paddle all year round there, which is really nice, and work with some really, really incredible people,” indicated Besharah, adding that it’ll shorten her travel time to Team Canada’s wintertime training hub in Chula Vista, California, where she’d also like to paddle come the L.A. 2028 Olympics.
But, before then, she’s got a big racing season on tap, culminating with the senior world championships in late August. Winning her second consecutive world title in the K1 U23 women’s 200 m was a great way to kick it off, even it came by a nervous margin of less than a tenth of a second.
“I have a sticker on the front of my boat that says ‘through the line’ because I often forget to do that. I forgot to do it again today, but it’s OK, it turned out really good overall,” Besharah smiled. “It’s definitely special to race at home, being able to race for Canada in Canada, and here on Canada Day too, it’s just so awesome.”
Also earning hardware at the July 1-5 event was Rideau’s Ruby Muhl, who took bronze in the C2 U23 women’s 200 m, while Carleton Place’s Roenn Hodgins and Rideau paddlers Kate Osborne, Ryan Naroditsky and Wesley Bartlett raced for Canada in Dartmouth as well.
“I’m just so proud of everybody who’s racing here, and all these younger athletes are incredible,” Besharah highlighted. “I hope some of the kids watching around the lake can see this and come back to their clubs and really take that as motivation to continue their path forward and see that they can also race here and end up on the world stage.”
Jensen, Hennessy both win 2 silver at Montreal World Cup
Besharah was back in action again the following weekend for the senior World Cup in Montreal, where local paddlers contributed to a majority of Canada’s nine medals won on home water.
Drawn back into Canada’s K-4 women’s 500 m boat, Besharah’s crew placed fifth in their heat, seventh in the semi-final and second in the B final for 11th overall.
Callie Loch was also part of the Canadian C4 boat, and the 19-year-old Rideau Canoe Club paddler also finished 16th overall in the K2 women’s 500.
In the K-1 women’s 200 m, Besharah placed second in her heat and then second in her semi-final to reach the A final en route to a fifth-place performance in 39.84 seconds.
“That was a PB (personal-best) for me. I’ve been wanting to break 40 (seconds) so I’m happy with this performance,” Besharah said via Canoe-Kayak Canada. “I really want to break into the medals, so I have some work to do in the lead-up to the senior World Championships. I’ll be working on my starts with my coach, with the goal of bringing home a medal.”
Sophia Jensen of the Cascades Canoe Club won a pair of World Cup silver medals during the tour’s visit to the 1976 Olympic basin. Jensen placed second by a healthy margin in the C1 women’s 500 m and then earned her third World Cup silver medal of the season the next day in the C1 women’s 200 m.
“I’m just really excited to be here and compete in front of all my friends and family,” the 24-year-old said through CKC. “I’ve never heard so much cheering coming down the course. It was really cool and it really motivated me to push.”
Read More: New training strategy brings early success for canoeist Sophia Jensen
Brianna Hennessy of the Ottawa River Canoe Club also took home a pair of silver medals at the home event. The Paris 2024 Paralympic medallist opened with a second-place performance in the KL1 women’s 200 m race in 1:00.37, finishing 1.53 seconds behind winner Katherinne Wollerman of Chile.
Great Britain’s Emma Wiggs powered to a 4.21-second victory in the VL2 women’s 200 m, but Hennessy kept a comfortable margin over the next five paddlers to win silver.
“I’m really happy I was able to stick to my game plan,” Hennessy told CKC. “There is always more to do, especially on my starts, but overall I think this was one of my better races and I’m happy about that.”
Zoe Wojtyk of the Rideau Canoe Club teamed up with Elizabeth Desrosiers-McArthur, Sloan Mackenzie and Katie Vincent for a bronze medal as they finished 2.27 seconds off the pace in the three-boat women’s C4 500 m.
Wojtyk, 21, also paddled with 2024 Olympic C1 champion Vincent in the women’s C2 500 m, placing sixth.
Rideau’s Gabriel Ferron-Bouius was fifth in his heat and second in his semi-final to reach the KL3 men’s 200 m A final, where he placed ninth.
And Rideau’s Peter Bradley took on the challenge of the C1 men’s 5,000 m, finishing 12th in a time of 28:35.22.