Canadian Olympic wheelchair hoops squad led by Mississauga, Oakville vets

Mississauga’s Tamara Steeves and Oakville’s Melanie Hawtin will lead an experienced Canadian wheelchair basketball team into the 2024 Paralympic Paris Games in August.

Steeves, who is making her fourth appearance, and Hawtin, who is competing in her third Olympic Games, were officially named to the team Monday (July 15) by the Canadian Paralympic Committee and Wheelchair Basketball Canada.

Canada will open the Paris Games against China on August 29, 2024.

“Over the past few months, our team has shown incredible dedication, progress, and commitment to improving daily,” said Michèle Sung, head coach of the Senior Women’s National Team. “Their hard work and determination have them prepared to compete at the highest level on the world stage in Paris.”

All 12 members of the Olympic team won silver at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago.

Steeves helped lead Canada to a fifth-place finish at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and also helped Canada finish fifth at the 2023 world championships.

After discovering wheelchair basketball in 2008, Steeves landed a spot three years later on Canada’s first-ever Women’s U25 National Team.

Born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Hawtin was on the fast track to a career as a wheelchair racer before surgery sidelined her, but soon after she discovered wheelchair basketball.

She began competing with the Burlington Vipers before going to represent Ontario at the women’s national championships in 2013.

She first made the senior women’s national team in 2014 and made her Paralympic debut two years later in Rio 2016.

Canada qualified for the Paris Games with an 88-30 drubbing of Algeria at the Women’s IWBF Repechage Tournament in Osaka, Japan in April.

“We have a really good group,” said captain Cindy Ouellet. “We’ve got everything physically and mentally. I think we have a good team all around to compete well.

“We’re going into this summer confident.”

Canada will compete in Pool A at the Games against Great Britain, China and Spain.