Julia
Hanes

Vancouver physician-resident Dr. Julia Hanes eclipsed her own Canadian record three times in six throws to win the F33 women’s shot put event at the 2024 Canadian Track and Field Championships.

She opened the competition with a throw of 6.88 metres to match the qualifying standard she had achieved the previous week. She broke the Canadian record with a throw of 7.01 metres in the second round and concluded the competition with two throws of 7.04 and 7.06 metres.

She hadn’t broken the seven-meter barrier since 2017.

In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Games, she holds all three Canadian throwing records in her category.

Hanes acquired her disability, hemiplegia, a disease that causes paralysis on one side of the body, at the age of 17.

She believes that sport has played an important role in her healing process. She also played para-hockey on ice, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. She also participated in many sports before her illness.

At the 2017 Canada Games, Hanes collected two gold medals in shot put and seated discus, and a year later she won silver in shot put at the World Cerebral Palsy Games.

Hanes still plays wheelchair rugby, and was part of the first Canadian women’s wheelchair rugby team to win bronze at the inaugural Women’s World Cup in Paris.

She earned a Bachelor of Health Sciences with a biomedical specialization from McMaster University in 2017 and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Ottawa.