Meadow Lake Para swimmer Nikita Ens will represent Canada at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris later this summer. (Nikita Ens/submitted)

By Logan Lehmann

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Meadow Lake swimmer set to don maple leaf at Paris 2024 Paralympics

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A Para swimmer from Meadow Lake is ready to make a splash at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris later this summer.

Nikita Ens will represent Canada at the Games in France and it won’t be her first time wearing the red and white on the Paralympic level, as she previously competed in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

With the COVID-19 pandemic making for a unique Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Ens said she’s looking forward to getting the whole experience this time around.

“[It’s] so exciting,” she said. “The Tokyo Paralympics were like a step back to kind of normalcy after COVID. And so this time, it’s going to be even more open, where you can have even tighter fellowship with fellow athletes from around the world. It’s going to be awesome.”

“The passion is fired up.”

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Despite not winning a medal at the 2020 Games, Ens is still one of the best in the world having placed in the top five in the last two World Championships, including a third-place finish in 2022 in the 200m freestyle and a fifth-place finish in 2023 in the 50m backstroke.

She said she will be competing in the 50m backstroke and the 100m freestyle in the upcoming Paralympics and added she’s been training hard with her swim club in Saskatoon.

“The training has been pretty similar,” she said, referring to when she was preparing for the 2020 Games. “We have a great swim in Saskatoon, the Lasers, and they have great physical support for injuries and strength.”

Ens poses with a Canada flag for a photo during the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. (Nikita Ens/submitted)

She never used to be a swimmer or a Para athlete but one night in 2014 changed her life forever.

In February of that year, Ens was involved in a collision just outside Meadow Lake on Highway 304 that left her a C5 paraplegic, meaning she no longer can move her legs or torso. Prior to the accident, she participated in track and field and was a high school Provincial Champion in shot put back in 2006. She was also a lifeguard and a cyclist, who once rode across Canada in just 32 days.

She said if it weren’t for a supportive group of friends and family, she doesn’t know where she’d be.

“[After the accident], I started competing in Para sport in track and field and athletics with Saskatoon Cycling,” Ens explained. “That was good, but then I stopped doing athletics and sat on the couch and ate my feelings. And then my loving parents said I should be responsible and take care of my body [with] the function that I have left. The very next day Mom took me to the pool and there happened to be a swim coach, Greg, who invited me to the Lasers.”

“Since then, it’s just escalated from local to national to international competitions. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but it’s exciting that beauty can come from ashes and if you handle the sorrow and don’t give up and press through it, it can lead to something neat and encouraging to others.”

Ens and the rest of Team Canada will embark on their journey across the pond to France in mid-August, while the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are set to get underway on August 28.

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loganc.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com