Saskatoon’s Ashlyn Renneberg set to make Paralympic debut

Saskatoon’s Ashlyn Renneberg overcame a lot of adversity on her journey to the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

The 19-year-old javelin thrower will be making her debut for Canada at the Paralympics in Paris on Saturday morning.

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Her road to the Paralympics hasn’t been an easy one. At the age of just 13, Renneberg had to have not one, but two brain surgeries.

“I had a brain tumor called subependymoma and I had a cause of hydrocephalus, which is pressure behind your optic nerve,” she explained.

“I had a seven-and-a-half hour surgery for the first surgery, and my second surgery was a relapse of hydrocephalus. So that’s how I became visually impaired and (got) into para sport.”

Renneberg is legally blind in her right eye and has 20/20 tunnel vision in her left eye. She said she can see people in front of her, but if she’d covered up her left eye, she wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

According to Renneberg, it was her parents who convinced her to give track and field a try.

“I did track in middle school, but I was never serious about it. It was just like a year-round thing everyone did. I think my parents and a couple cousins were like ‘How do you feel about track and field? It doesn’t really require a much depth and you can do anything in it,’” she explained. “They kind of threw me into that sport, and I fell in love with it.”

Renneberg said when she was first exploring track and field, she instantly found a love for the javelin.

“I remember watching some girls do it and was thinking that was so cool. They could throw that thing so far and I want to be able to what they’re doing,” she said.

“I just wanted to be like the older girls I saw doing it, and I was like ‘You know what? No one really does this event anyways. I want to be like them and just be different.’”

While throwing a spear into the middle of a field might appear to be easy on TV, Renneberg said the sport provides plenty of challenges, especially for athletes with limited vision.

“It’s hard for you to start running and be like ‘Let’s not cross over the line or get out of sector,’” she explained.

“There’s a lot of challenges I find within the event I do, but with the coaching I had and the people I had supporting me, it was very easily accomplished with their training and technique.”

Renneberg’s road to qualifying for Team Canada at this Paris Games is different than most, as she didn’t qualify this summer.

Instead, she said she got a phone call out of the blue asking if she’d be ready to represent Canada on the world’s biggest stage.

“The olympic standard was 33 (metres), and I didn’t hit it,” Renneberg explained.

“For the last couple weeks it was between me and a whole bunch of people that were fighting for spots. It just came down to how you were in the world and how you performed throughout the season and if you could do really well in Paris.”

Renneberg threw for a Canadian record of of 31.48 metres at an event in Switzerland, which might’ve helped her get the last-minute call to the games.

She said learning that she’ll go to the Paralympics was an emotional moment for her entire family.

“I was so happy,” she said.

“My mom was crying, my dad was so happy and everyone was hugging. It doesn’t feel real.”

Renneberg said she didn’t expect something like this to happen to her so soon.

“I just thought that I was doing the sport I love and happy to be doing it,” she said.

“To be at this level and become a para athlete as of this year – January – all doors were just flung open, and it was just the best experience I could’ve ever imagined for. It makes me so happy – I know 13-year-old me would be jumping up and down with excitement.”

Renneberg will compete in the javelin throw at 2 a.m. local time on Saturday.