Originally a track and field athlete, Laryssa Biesenthal took up rowing in 1990 as a student at the University of British Columbia. She attended her first World Championship in 1995 where, alongside Kathleen Heddle, Marnie McBean,and Diane O’Grady, she won a silver medal in the quadruple sculls event. The quartet then travelled to the 1996 Summer Olympics, where they won bronze behind the Germans and the Ukrainians. Following the Games she joined the women’s eights crew and, with Buffy Alexander-Williams, Alison Korn , Jessica Monroe, Emma Robinson, Lesley Thompson-Willie, Dorota Urbaniak, Kristen Wall, and the non-Olympian Kubet Weston, won a silver medal at the 1997 World Championships. The same squad, with Heather Davis and McBean replacing Monroe and Wall, took bronze at the 1998 edition, where Biesenthal also won silver, alongside Alexander-Williams, McBean, and Weston, in the coxless fours. The following season, Davis and McBean were replaced by Theresa Luke and Heather McDermid on the eights crew and, with them, Biesenthal won her final World Championship medal, bronze. Prior to her retirement, however, she had two more medals to win: gold in the double sculls at the 1999 Pan American Games, with the non-Olympian Jennifer Browett, and bronze in the eights at the 2000 Summer Olympics, alongside her 1999 World Championship squad (with Davis replacing Weston). She later worked as a coach and was hired in that capacity by the Canadian national team prior to the 2004 Summer Games.
Canada