Natalie Thirsk

At the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, Natalie Thirsk set a personal best and Canadian record 1:08.42 to place sixth in the women’s T38 400m.

She started Para athletics in 2019 and made her mark quickly, breaking the Canadian record in the 100m, 200m and 400m. She still holds those records as of October 2023, improving the 100 to 14.03 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 200 and 400 marks in 2023.

In her youth she also played ringette, judo and soccer. A nursing student in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University, her father Warren Thirsk was a USport wrestling champion for the school in 1991.

Thirsk was born with cerebral palsy.